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Shop till you drop

There are many ways a trip to the supermarket could be made more enjoyable. Combining it with a workout at the gym is arguably not one of them.

Still, in a move that takes the notion of multi-tasking to a new dimension, supermarket chain Tesco is now merging these two mundane chores of modern life in the hope of wooing time-pressed shoppers.

Thanks to a new shopping trolley, customers of Tesco will soon be able to burn calories while buying the weekly groceries.

Using technology normally found on gym machines, the trolley can be programmed to make it harder to push, increasing the heartbeat and exercising muscles in the legs, arms and stomach.

Sensors in the handle bar allow shoppers to monitor their heart rate and count calories as well as measure how far they have traipsed up and down the aisles.

Wayne Asher, who designed the trolley on behalf of the German manufacturer Wanzl, says a 40-minute shopping trip with the trolley set at resistance level seven (it goes from one to 10) would burn off about 280 calories.

That is equivalent to half an hour jogging, he said, and 30 per cent more than the number of calories expended shopping with a standard trolley.

Better still, Mr Asher believes the trolley will inspire customers to be more health conscious as they shop.

"There's a subliminal effect," he said. " If you are pushing it, are you going to put a chocolate cake in your trolley? You will be thinking, 'I'm really unfit. I must have something healthy'."

Tesco said the trolley was a response to customers' growing concerns about health and fitness.

So does it work? The Telegraph road-tested the prototype and found the experience surprisingly similar to pushing, well, a heavily laden shopping trolley. At level seven, getting the thing moving required a fair old shove, and my heart rate quickly jumped from 80 beats a minute to nearer 130.

How does it compare to the gym? Well, the fact you are doing something else does make the whole exercise of exercising slightly less boring.

But do not expect your efforts to win any admiring glances from fellow shoppers. "Pumping fruit" does not have the same ring to it.

Posted by thinkum at April 29, 2004 04:38 PM