Some good offers on wine and meat, lamb (french) and pork, 
https://www.magasins-u.com/catalogue-des-promotions-u#pop-choix-magasin
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We get the bumph and I look through it and see if tgere is anything on offer that I usually buy.
I look for label rouge chicken, toilet rolls, veg and fruit.
As I cook a lot the many offers on packaged items don’t really interest me.
Only meat we buy, pork and lamb offers, Chick, Pintade etc from a local place , where it’s free range, far superior to super market produce, it’s a charity, supporting young people, our beef comes from a farmer, other meat from our village butcher.
Sadly, we don’t have, any more, a fishmonger locally, so fish from super market too.
Wine and regular consumables, most fruit and veg, normally, super market.
My views on the meat available in France are well documented (!?!) so I won’t harp on. If anyone’s interested in some decent stuff delivered to your door - take a look at Bacon By The Box - available in the following areas : Delivery Map
Friends kindly bring us bacon and sausages when they visit, sorry to report, both are far inferior to those produced by our local butcher, I haven’t yet thought how to diplomatically point this out to our very kind friends 
Intermarche have kronenbourg 1664 24 bottles for €8.30 this week 
Time to stock up:blush:
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Been back to S U for another 5 cases of ‘Roche Mazet’ Cabernet Sauvignon this morn’ 9€ a case.
We don’t have any shops in our commune.
Ours are a min’ 6kms Jane.
We don’t either, our nearest 9km
Sadly this is true of us as well, the butcher and bar had closed before we bought, the restaurant and dépôt de pain folded last year with no prospect of anyone taking on either.
The trend is for rural villages to loose their local shops against competition from supermarkets and falling populations - although our village is, at least, growing for the moment (in fact Morbihan does seem less affected by movement away from the villages than some parts of France).
Close by Pluherlin maintains a baker, butcher, general store and hotel/restaurant but has a larger population - ~1200 compared with 750, as does Rochefort (but that’s quite touristy) - currently I reckon a population of about 1000 is needed to keep local shops going.
Not sure about population Paul, more to do with a Supermarket appearing nearby, that is certainly the ‘Kiss of Death’ for most small enterprises.
Was a shame when the ‘Leon de Or’, resto’ in St Grave closed, one of our favourites.
Malansac still boasts the basics, as do Caden, Allaire and St Jacut les Pins, all within 10mins of us, but there are dozens of closed and converted shops, killed off by new Super U and Intermarché’s.
Butcher/Traiteur, Baker/Patisserie, Bar/Tabac/ Betting Shop seem the only survivors.
Even Town centres like Redon offer little more than banks, insurance, and ‘spec’ shops (second pair free).
Rochefort en Terre, a touristy place in the Summer, the parking charge rules out visiting (for locals) for a coffee and a browse round, makes a coffee or beer a bit pricey!!! A shot in the foot by the Mayor!
My commune doesn’t have any shops but there again I would be surprised if it ever had. The local town a short distance away is thriving. The town centre shops survive despite the town having two large supermarkets, a Lidl and a Leader Price.
We have two restaurants but no shops.
When one examines the facades of buildings in villlages around here D’, there are obvious signs, that quite a few are shops converted into dwellings.
Well local shops serve the local population and if that population is too small (and in many places dwindling) commerce is not going to thrive.
But I agree that the nearby presence of a supermarket is going to be the larger factor for many village shops.
Yes, though it was never busy of late.
In Malansac’s case (and similar small towns) the supermarket might even help by drawing more people in from the surrounding villages. They’re spending money to tidy up the area around the station as well.
I remember when we first visited Morbihan that a ticket for the Rochefort car parks was valid for a full year!
I don’t think Super U has helped any business anywhere Paul, maybe the bars???
Closing the railway crossing at the E end of Malansac, has hurt trade, nothing passes through the village. The price, to stop for an hour in R en T is utterly nuts!!!
I’m not clear how closing the East crossing will hurt trade, it only really served the short section of the D213 leading down to the 775 - going via the D21 doesn’t seem too onerous.
We don’t often go into R en T these days mainly because visits are still DIY focused - I’m hoping 2018 will be the last year that is the case.
Going back to population all of the places that you mentioned were maintaing local shops have populations of over 1500, it is definitely a factor.
OK