At Blind Ambition, we believe that accessibility is not an optional extra – it is a fundamental part of good customer service and a basic expectation in a modern society.
We are proud to share that Blind Ambition has collaborated with The Grocer magazine on an in-depth investigation examining how welcoming and accessible major UK supermarkets are for blind and partially sighted people.
As part of this collaboration, Blind Ambition arranged for a group of trained mystery shoppers who are blind or partially sighted to visit a range of well-known UK supermarkets. Their role was to experience stores exactly as customers do and to assess how accessible, supportive and inclusive those environments are in practice – not just on paper or in policy.
Accessibility is a legal duty – and a matter of independence
Under the Equality Act 2010, retailers have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled customers are not placed at a substantial disadvantage.
For blind and partially sighted people, reasonable adjustments can include:
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Proactively offering assistance when someone enters the store
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Providing a member of staff to guide someone around the supermarket
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Helping customers locate items, read labels or understand offers
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Ensuring customer service desks are easy to find and responsive
In the best examples observed by our mystery shoppers, these adjustments enabled people to shop independently, confidently and with dignity.
At its heart, this is about independence. Being able to do your own food shopping means being able to provide for your family, manage your household and participate fully in everyday life without unnecessary barriers.
What Blind Ambition’s mystery shoppers experienced
Our mystery shoppers assessed not just written procedures, but the lived reality on the shop floor. Several clear themes emerged:
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Staff awareness and confidence are critical – a simple, respectful offer of help can transform the experience
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Inconsistency remains a major challenge – accessibility often varies significantly between stores within the same supermarket group
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Good practice already exists – demonstrating that accessibility is entirely achievable when inclusion is taken seriously
The full supermarket-by-supermarket findings are explored in detail in The Grocer article.
Lived experience matters
As Blind Ambition’s Founder, Seema Flower brings lived experience of navigating supermarkets as a blind customer. Reflecting on her own experiences, she notes that accessibility failures are rarely about complexity, but about preparation and attitude.
“Accessibility is about independence. When supermarkets get it right, blind and partially sighted people can shop with confidence, provide for their families and feel included in everyday life – exactly as they should. When they get it wrong, it can feel humiliating and stressful, as though you are a burden for simply wanting to shop like everyone else.”
This is why consistency, training and leadership matter. Accessibility cannot rely on chance or goodwill alone.
Lived experience beyond the mystery-shopping exercise
Alongside our formal mystery-shopping work, Blind Ambition continues to hear directly from blind and partially sighted people about their everyday experiences in supermarkets. These lived experiences closely mirror the themes identified through our structured research.
One blind shopper recently described how repeated attempts to arrange support in advance of visiting a supermarket were unsuccessful. On the occasions they did attend in person, they were left waiting for long periods at customer services before any assistance was available. Staff appeared unsure how to guide or support a blind customer, leaving them feeling stressed, humiliated and treated as an inconvenience rather than a valued customer.
As they put it:
“It should not be a big deal to want to shop in a place to pick my own groceries, but I was made to feel like a burden.”
Experiences like this are not about individual blame. They highlight systemic issues around training, confidence and consistency, and reinforce why accessibility must be planned, embedded and delivered reliably across all stores.
Why this matters to supermarkets
Blind and partially sighted people are customers, parents, carers and professionals. When supermarkets get accessibility right, they are not only meeting their legal duties – they are building trust, loyalty and long-term relationships with customers who want to shop independently and with confidence.
This work reinforces a clear message: accessibility must be embedded across the organisation, with leadership commitment, practical staff training and ongoing engagement with disabled people’s lived experience.
Blind Ambition can help
At Blind Ambition, we support organisations to understand the real-world challenges faced by disabled customers across all impairment groups, including visual, physical, hearing, neurodivergent and hidden disabilities.
From bespoke mystery-shopper and benchmarking programmes – such as our collaboration with The Grocer magazine – to tailored training that builds confidence and capability among managers and frontline teams, we help organisations turn insight into lasting cultural change.
Our work spans supermarkets and retailers, hotels, major tourist attractions, medical schools and healthcare settings, as well as streetworks and infrastructure companies seeking to be more accessible to disabled road users.
If you would like to discuss how Blind Ambition can support your organisation to become more accessible to all disabled customers, please get in touch.
The Grocer article has now been published and can be read here:
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/analysis-and-features/how-supermarkets-are-failing-blind-and-visually-impaired-shoppers/714976.article
and also https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/appalling-asda-staff-belittled-blind-mystery-shopper/714902.article
