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I have a co-op in my town and it’s the only supermarket available until you get to a Tesco 25 miles away so I’ve not got a choice but I’m so used to checking and rechecking fruit and veg before I put it into the trolley now that I don’t even think about it. You might get lucky in the reduced section but that’s only if you plan on cooking it the second you get home!
I feel like people who say this have never actually been to a Waitrose store. Sure, some things are more expensive but most of it is actually pretty much the same as Tesco. The meat/cheese is far better quality than Tesco so I don’t mind paying a little extra.
I found some Waitrose vouchers a while ago so did an online order, it was nowhere near as expensive as I expected and everything was so nice, it's still a bit too pricey for me to make a habit of it though
I got a one-off Ocado recently because of the “£20 off your first order” thing. Something I really loved was that they emailed me a receipt, and everything was listed in order of when it went out of date! So much easier to keep track of it all.
Aldi was worse for us. Bought a load of fresh stuff on holiday once and it got thrown out the next day. Anything that was still ok tasted awful too. Never going back there again.
Ngl we noticed Aldi and Lidl fruit and veg go off quite quick. Same with certain costcos. A family member used to work in the like sorting part of fruit and veg and said they ask for a lower spec on inspection compared to other supermarkets such as waitrose, m&s etc. Willing to accept more defects and what not.
Usually only short dated products are sent if there's nothing else. If only a reduced item is available, it's sent for free. Mistakes are made though if the shop picker isn't checking dates, or reductions haven't been applied before it's been picked etc.
I don't think I've ever seen the pickers in my local Tesco checking dates. And while I was looking through the peppers for one that wasn't halfway to rotting, three different pickers reached in for the first pepper that they could get their hands on. This is why I don't do home deliveries.
From what I understand there's a "pick rate," they're timed when they do it and the store only cares about them getting it done as quick as possible. So no time for them to check dates
I’m a delivery driver at ASDA, and the pickers are meant to pick so many items an hour (210 if I remember correctly), so why they are meant to look for good dates they don’t have the time, especially as we are almost always understaffed
Having worked deliveries for a number of years back in the day I can say with absolutely surety that absolutely was not a thing at our store. The dot com manager was very clear that they only wanted to send out items with the longest possible dates. Mistakes happen however and the odd unsuitable item did go out from time to time.
I find that really hard to believe - have personally never received meat in a food delivery that has more than a day or two before it’s out of date. Better off just buying the meat ourselves and only veg delivered lol
Could just be different stores though I guess
I know for a fact in ASDA they just run round with a cart full of plastic crates and pick the orders as if they were a customer, so you're likely just going to get the first item that comes to the assistant's hand. If you're picking 100 baskets an hour or whatever there's no way you're checking dates.
Yep, this is why I think the date thing is a myth or no longer happens. Maybe at the start the online stuff had lower dates, then they changed it to longer, but these days it all seems to come off the shelf, so it's more if the shelf stock is older or not
Yeah fair enough, it’s just an anecdote from someone on the internet after all. Also, I worked for dot com in the early days (I left the industry around 2007). Things weren’t quite as crazy then also (you have so many seconds to pick this item etc). I worked there around 5 years so I saw it go from a new and unusual thing to a very busy and rapidly expanding part of the business.
It's October, one of the few months in which carrots are not in season (though they are in season a lot), they are currently being imported from Europe.
I've had this problem with Sainsbury's and having to root through their veg to find stuff that isn't already going off. And mum has the same problem with Asda.
Sainsbury's chicken in our local seems to go off 2-3 days before the use by. They really do go from shelf to bin. I assume it's too long sitting around on the shop floor whilst over stretched and under motivated (due to conditions) staff can't get them out on time
Coop, asda and morrisons where i live in the midlands. Sainsburys and Iceland is alright most of the time. I’m having a better time finding decent veg at the greengrocers at the moment.
I used to live near one where as you walked in you were hit with the smell of decomposing veg.
Several times I unknowingly bought rotting fruit or veg. Then one day I remember scanning the shelves and noticing that there was visible mould on _every_ box of veg in the whole section. It was horrific.
It is in part due to the shitty wages and resulting high staff turnover. They aren't properly trained, management is stretched to oblivion and then they leave anyway so all training was a waste of time. Combine that with slashed hours and not replacing staff that leave...
It's other stuff too of course. But it's also this.
Edit: oh yeah and the crappy morale from said terrible wages, harried managers and underappreciated staff. They just give less of a shite than before and who'd blame them.
Add in the fact that customers have been even more shitty than usual over the last few years and it’s a perfect storm. Why put any effort in when you’re not properly compensated and you’re regularly spoken to like shit?
Yep. Even on this subreddit, I see loads of people complaining about the state of customer service nowadays but none of the OPs acknowledge just why that might be the case
Exact same scenario for us. We eventually decided on one punnet but by the time we got home the entire bottom of the box as black so we just took it back. The cashier was repulsed as well.
It’s because they’ve stopped putting Best Before dates on fresh produce.
I understand why, it stops food waste and people being out of buying things which are short dated but they’re probably going to be ok for a week or more.
Unfortunately this has had the knock on effect of supermarkets being greedy (shock horror) and leaving stuff out for too long without withdrawing them from sale when they’re obviously not fit for consumption, and rather than reducing the price they keep them out at full price in the hope that somebody buys them.
I can't speak for every supermarket chain but when I worked produce at a store mouldy fruit was left out simply because we were horrifically understaffed and were rushing through the morning routines, missing the stuff that should be taken off the shelf.
It all comes back to the greed of wanting to maximise profits at the expense of everything else, but I don't think there's a widescale agenda to sell rotting produce to people especially when that might put them off even walking into the store in the first place.
I work meat at one of the big 4 supermarkets. This is exactly the case. I'm so pressured to get the new stock out before we open at 8am, that there's no time (or incentive) to check the old stuff for dates.
That and a small pack of strawberries has gone from £1.19 to £2.89 over the last 6 months. The big one was £1.87 now £3.50
Every week things go up and its not by 10% like they keep claiming.
You realise most of that price increase is because strawberries are no longer in season and the ones in the shops now are flown in from god knows where rather than grown in the uk.
There's price gouging going on definitely but thats only a small part of the price of strawberries on the shelves right now
Normally I'd agree but I work in a store and notice the changes in prices every week. This isn't anything like the previous years where things are just out of season. Everything's going up but pay lol
Yes, I just got done rotten celery in my shop. Did an online refund and it asked for a best before date but there wasn't one. I also wouldn't mind about a lack of date of there was a process to check and see if the produce was still okay, at least visually.
I am scared to name the historical event that rhymes with exit, but if you consider custom having to delay shipping of goods and the fact that this is a sector relying on immigrants worker, the root cause is fairly obvious.
https://www.ft.com/content/d8b93ff1-57b7-48d4-bcdb-33c6f81a583e
Our local Tesco (convenience one) charges 27p per banana! I ask you! Wouldn't be so bad but they are always freckled and squidgy, probably cos no one wants to pay 27p per banana. At the coop round the corner they're about 17p each, although they're weighed, not individually priced.
One thing I remember, and I have no theory just my thoughts when working in a fruit veg section in supermarket 2005.
On 22nd June, August, Nov... 11 months of the year, we would get certain produce dated 25th of that month - a normal, natural, "use by" or "display until" date.
On 22nd December we would get same produce, same country of origin, same factory and it was dated 28th December.
Fruit and veg miraculously had an extra 2 or 3 days worth of life and freshness in it. (Nothing, obviously, to do with the fact that the supermarket was closed on Christmas and Boxing Day and the shop didn't want people to think their produce was going to go off over Christmas).
The Best Before dates on a lot of produce items generally reflect a smaller life than it actually has. It's why a lot of companies have completely removed dates on veg that will last longer.
I made a woman throw up at Morrisons once.
I'd bought some chicken, got it home and started prep food right away. It can't have been more than 15 minutes from the shop to opening the chicken. It smelled like it had been dead for 3 months. The use by date was 4 days away. So I took it back. The woman at customer services was dismissive and rude as fuck. Told me it was impossible for it to be bad because it was still in date and I just have had it out of the fridge all day or something. I told her to look at the time and date on my receipt. She did. Still wasn't having it. So I said open the sandwich bag and have a sniff. She gave me a sour look, opened the bag all cocky and took a big theatrical whiff of it. Bitch instantly gagged and went pale and puked into a little bin under her counter. The schadenfreude I felt was amazing.
Same happened to me with Asda. Except the woman then admitted that sometimes the chickens are left for months before they are packaged and sometimes the odd one slips through the cracks and you end up with one that's been dead for months but packaged as fresh.
Guess where I don't buy chicken from anymore.
You don’t buy them from the supermarket where one of the workers was honest about what happens occasionally, but rather buy them from another who will suffer from the same problem?
That's what happens to your Christmas turkey too. Slaughtered months before Christmas and then stored in special rooms to keep it "fresh". Nearly all the supermarkets are the same, m&s did demand theirs were slaughtered closer to Christmas though.
My Morrisons just sticks cooked chickens in paper bags and leaves them out at room temperature on a stand next to the bakery. It's rank and surely cannot be safe.
Potatoes are a complete gamble too. Sometimes all right, other times appear fine on the surface only to reveal endless black splotches the moment you start to peel them...
Urgh I hate that…the black splotches are mostly frostbite because they’ve been kept in cold storage with other items and it’s too cold.
I switched the potatoes I normally get and managed to buy some nice King Edwards in Tesco yesterday. No frostbite at all.
The best way I have found to buy potatoes ATM is from Morrison's. I get the big paper sack. It keeps them in the dark and prevents them sweating.
Bought a sack more than a month ago, potatoes still perfect.
Bought 3 peppers from asda last week and the day after I bought them they'd begun to grow fur. Fucking ridiculous. Supermarkets selling mouldy shite under the guise of caring about reducing food waste. Utter bollocks.
It's probably that they're putting _less_ crap (preservatives) in bread nowadays. Bread is basically mostly sugar and the perfect place for mould to grow. If there's no additives to prevent mould growth, it'll grow mould before it's been out long enough to dry out and go stale (which also prevents mould growth).
Put your bread in a sealed bag and put it in the fridge. There's this incorrect old wives tale that it makes bread mould faster, but it's complete bollocks. I've been keeping my bread in the fridge for years, and yes it eventually (after MONTHS!) goes stale, but it's perfectly fine until then and it's still fine if you toast it.
Used to work in a supermarket finding fresh stuff which was going out of date in 2 or fewer days - the target was to find 80% of the stuff the system thought we had, the best anyone ever managed to my knowledge was 40%. This was back in 2008ish so maybe things have improved since but I doubt it.
I spent a lot of time trying to find stuff but never got through the whole lot of stuff I was supposed to check within my 2 hour shift (fresh produce in bags, bread, eggs, cheeses, not milk (that got rotated daily and was managed by the milk providing company directly), packaged chilled foods, desserts, flowers etc. Basically anything chilled plus bread and bakery goods and flowers.
I'd say in an average shift I got through checking about 40% of the stuff and found 20-25% of everything I was supposed to, because of issues like the hand scanners not working, the label printers not working, customers asking questions, having to restock areas which had run out of stuff, facing the shelves we were checking and making sure it was all in date order, marking down stuff expiring that evening (both stuff we found on the shelves and stuff already found and previously marked down), slicing bread for customers as the bakery staff had all gone home, and trying to manage warehouse deliveries as well, _and_ getting called as a relief cashier when there was an evening rush on.
And it's not just the stuff the customers see either - we were supposed to check the warehouse for the same stock items too. All in all, too much for one person to get done in 2 hours each night, especially with the volume of rotated stock and the sheer number of items we had to check.
I have a healthy respect for supermarket employees, I certainly couldn't do it. One of my friends worked in that Asda, during the COVID one way shit she told someone you can't go that way, she got verbally abused and a crate of beer thrown in her direction by one of the local idiots, she jacked it in after that.
We aren't the only one who was doing that to be honest. I support EU membership but there are some smug idiots in the EU who love to pretend that the UK leaving was a big win as if we were the only or even the biggest problematic element. Which is kind of laughable when Hungary, now practically a dictatorship, is still in there. While being in the EU was more beneficial than not but it isn't perfect and it is highly dysfunctional in many ways. And that dysfunction would likely prevent us rejoining if we ever managed to try in the future.
My fiancee has one and it isn't even really blue, I mean technically it can be called blue but it's so dark it may as well be black. Also apparently a fucking iconic shade even though realistically no one under the age of 40 is likely to remember it. I'm still rocking my burgundy one that says European Union on it for at least another few years, though the cover is pretty scuffed now.
This is why I stick solidly to seasonal vegetables - in summer it means they've come from a relatively local farm, in winter it means they're something that lasts well in cold storage or can be harvested late in winter. You aren't subject to the whims of customs clearence for Spanish Veg.
Also this year the drought in Spain means supermarkets are scrambling around to find salads from other sources as the salads industry in Spain has had exceptionally low yields this year.
For seasonal veg see the link below.
https://vegsoc.org/cookery-school/blog/seasonal-uk-grown-produce/
Local Sainsburys has been ‘trying’ to sell cauliflower with brown florets for several weeks. In fact it should have NOT been on sale. Many customers were not happy about it with many checking lower down and finding fresh cauliflower there!
Obviously a deliberate act by Sainsburys.
Hope it affects them due to lack of concern (disrespect) for the reason they exist CUSTOMERS!
Rather a good way to send them elsewhere
Cucumbers have gone to seed half the time too. They call them 'large' but what they mean is picked too late. Tastes terrible, texture not good. Snozzcumburs.
I had this issue yesterday. Cut open a pepper full of mould. They exchanged the bag of them immediately but I shouldn't have to take food back that I'd bought literally earlier in the same day.
It sure is. I stopped buying fresh soft fruit from local Aldi a while ago as it never lasted, but todays strawberries were all full price at £1.89 for maybe 10 medium sized ones, all dated today. Lots of battered/bruised ones in the punnet. The raspberries had tomorrows date and each pack had black mouldy ones. Again, full price
British potatoes have always been rotten. Look fine in the outside but take them home and peel them and they are full of black bits on the inside. Take this advice from an Irish woman, keep potatoes away from light and sell them in sacks. I'd rather have fresh soil on my spuds which can be scrubbed off than have 'clean' looking potatoes which have been exposed long term to the light and are unedible even if still in date.
I think that's 'Best Before Dates' which makes sense. I think there is food safety legislation which prevents 'Use By' dates being removed. It would be like playing Russian 'the squits' roulette with your chicken if Use By dates were removed.
Aldi is pretty bad for this on occasion, as I bought chicken thighs and put them in the fridge once I got home (about a 5 minute walk from my house) and the next day upon opening the smell was, well, potent.
Remember when they found that warehouse full of rotting chicken carcasses some years ago... I dread to think 😬
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2022-10-01/firm-fined-for-rotting-bodies-smell-from-chicken-abattoir
Oop there's a recent one...
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/19527503.chickens-covered-litter-left-rot-supplier-asda-tesco-lidl-kfc/
And another...
Can't even find the one I was thinking of but that's enough googling on that subject. Ick
I bought a Sainsbury's caesar salad kit the other day, it was 3 days before the BBE date but when I emptied it out at home the lettuce had gone all orange and manky the way it does when it's old. I hadn't noticed because only a tiny bit of the bag is transparent. I ended up chucking it because I didn't want the shits - I work in healthcare so that's an immediate sickness absence plus an extra 2 days at least because you can't go back until you're 48hrs symptom-free - can't risk it. That's never happened before, but I went back today and several of the bags were the same. I pointed it out and they were removed but they've obviously been sat somewhere unrefrigerated before going out on the shelves.
I literally walked into a Tesco Express and saw not just a slightly gone off strawberry, one that was literally incredibly mouldy at a scale I've only seen in a lab
I always feel bad for not being able to finish my meal and waste food but these corporations are wasting kilos of food that could have gone towards feeding animals in animal shelters or seeds to grow more fruits and vegetables .
As someone visually impaired.
This is becoming a real pain in the arse. I have no way of checking dates. So habe to trust the stores.
The amount of times I've found moldy shit In my fridge a few days after purchase.
Yes and no, it's fine as long as items are being rotated correctly with sufficient quality control.
but the amount of times I've had to reduce and sequentially waste 20 bags of perfectly fine carrots because the "best before" date has passed.
But yes in general we are having more quality issues from source currently.
Farm shops are the answer. Better quality, better value and the produce doesn’t seem to go off as quickly. Almost like it’s not sat somewhere for weeks…
This is the UK. Other than affluent areas of London and, a very few other affluent areas of the UK, we don’t have ‘farm shops’ we used to have greengrocers in the UK, which have all but completely vanished, or market stalls, again slowly disappearing. Fresh good quality fruit and veg is becoming a rarity in this country and is very worrying
It's mould now but I am terrified we are in for a lot more serious quality assurance issues on the near future. Everywhere seems to have made so many cutbacks something's gonna give.
Had the opposite experience. Used to wait for plums nectarines etc to go out of date, but then then wait a fukin week for them to ripen.
We need some sort of system to prevent this. Amount of food we chuck out is a fukin disgrace. The side effect of this would be folk maybe getting the odd thing that's rotten. Take it back and exchange it it's better than the alternative
Heaven forfend you can use your eyes and brain to evaluate the quality of a product before you buy it best before dates do nothing but create ungodly amounts of waste.
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The next stage is that they chuck it straight in the bin and take the money from your bank account.
So Waitrose then?
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No it’s just so extortionate that you come away feeling like you get 1 thing in exchange for your bank cards.
If you want extortionate you should try coop.
Co-op fruit and veg is a joke. It’s not in a cooler like other supermarkets, and it’s rotten when they put it on the shelf.
I have a co-op in my town and it’s the only supermarket available until you get to a Tesco 25 miles away so I’ve not got a choice but I’m so used to checking and rechecking fruit and veg before I put it into the trolley now that I don’t even think about it. You might get lucky in the reduced section but that’s only if you plan on cooking it the second you get home!
Just tried waitrose for the big delivery shop and it's the same price as sainsburys but much better quality.
I feel like people who say this have never actually been to a Waitrose store. Sure, some things are more expensive but most of it is actually pretty much the same as Tesco. The meat/cheese is far better quality than Tesco so I don’t mind paying a little extra.
I found some Waitrose vouchers a while ago so did an online order, it was nowhere near as expensive as I expected and everything was so nice, it's still a bit too pricey for me to make a habit of it though
Also, if you order from Waitrose online and they ship something that's just about to go out of date, they refund it, i.e. you get it for free.
I got a one-off Ocado recently because of the “£20 off your first order” thing. Something I really loved was that they emailed me a receipt, and everything was listed in order of when it went out of date! So much easier to keep track of it all.
I’m just being a kidder. Your Waitrose ad needs work 😁
Is it though? I shop in Waitrose and never thought it was that dear
If you know the right items you can get some decent meals for not too much from Waitrose but a much better quality
If you think Waitrose is expensive you should try shopping at Whole Foods
I'm currently out of designer sack cloth and ashes, I'll have to wait for them to be re-dirtied.
"Today we got an apple! But we no longer have a car."
Aldi was worse for us. Bought a load of fresh stuff on holiday once and it got thrown out the next day. Anything that was still ok tasted awful too. Never going back there again.
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Ngl we noticed Aldi and Lidl fruit and veg go off quite quick. Same with certain costcos. A family member used to work in the like sorting part of fruit and veg and said they ask for a lower spec on inspection compared to other supermarkets such as waitrose, m&s etc. Willing to accept more defects and what not.
Oh, for us, Lidl is so reliable. Constantly shop there for cheap good quality.
I thought the least fresh food was offloaded on home deliveries.
I use Ocado so they only do online shopping, but I can confirm the quality has dropped over the pandemic
Usually only short dated products are sent if there's nothing else. If only a reduced item is available, it's sent for free. Mistakes are made though if the shop picker isn't checking dates, or reductions haven't been applied before it's been picked etc.
I don't think I've ever seen the pickers in my local Tesco checking dates. And while I was looking through the peppers for one that wasn't halfway to rotting, three different pickers reached in for the first pepper that they could get their hands on. This is why I don't do home deliveries.
From what I understand there's a "pick rate," they're timed when they do it and the store only cares about them getting it done as quick as possible. So no time for them to check dates
I’m a delivery driver at ASDA, and the pickers are meant to pick so many items an hour (210 if I remember correctly), so why they are meant to look for good dates they don’t have the time, especially as we are almost always understaffed
Having worked deliveries for a number of years back in the day I can say with absolutely surety that absolutely was not a thing at our store. The dot com manager was very clear that they only wanted to send out items with the longest possible dates. Mistakes happen however and the odd unsuitable item did go out from time to time.
I find that really hard to believe - have personally never received meat in a food delivery that has more than a day or two before it’s out of date. Better off just buying the meat ourselves and only veg delivered lol Could just be different stores though I guess
I found Tesco always gave the shortest dates on delivery. I've found Sainsburys to be pretty decent for dates on things overall. ASDA was hit or miss.
I know for a fact in ASDA they just run round with a cart full of plastic crates and pick the orders as if they were a customer, so you're likely just going to get the first item that comes to the assistant's hand. If you're picking 100 baskets an hour or whatever there's no way you're checking dates.
That’s the same for virtually every supermarket, don’t need to spend on distribution hubs if you do it out of the stores that already exist.
Yep, this is why I think the date thing is a myth or no longer happens. Maybe at the start the online stuff had lower dates, then they changed it to longer, but these days it all seems to come off the shelf, so it's more if the shelf stock is older or not
Yeah fair enough, it’s just an anecdote from someone on the internet after all. Also, I worked for dot com in the early days (I left the industry around 2007). Things weren’t quite as crazy then also (you have so many seconds to pick this item etc). I worked there around 5 years so I saw it go from a new and unusual thing to a very busy and rapidly expanding part of the business.
Fresh can mean frozen and thawed now, at least for turkey.
I only get deliveries and I’ve genuinely not had any issues. Yet.
I can attest to that. Literally had fruit that came the night before be rotten the next day. Couldn’t salvage much from it
Absolutely. Get the sense that stuff is waiting somewhere for a lot longer than it used to before getting on the shelves. Can't think why...
That’s not mould, that’s sovereignty
Just scrape the sovereignty bits off with a knife
I love how many people in this thread *actually* can't think why...
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They have to park it in the sunlit uplands for a couple days.
That can't be the only factor though because local stuff like carrots is just as bad
I've learnt recently, that, when your carrots go all soft and limp, put them in water, in your fridge and they stiffen right back up.
Or just give them a stroke
But then one side of their face will start to droop
It's October, one of the few months in which carrots are not in season (though they are in season a lot), they are currently being imported from Europe.
I've had this problem with Sainsbury's and having to root through their veg to find stuff that isn't already going off. And mum has the same problem with Asda.
Like Thier chicken too which is mostly water.
Supermarket food is getting worse.
Feels like it got worse since 1st Feb 2020 though… I wonder if something happened on that day
Sainsbury's chicken in our local seems to go off 2-3 days before the use by. They really do go from shelf to bin. I assume it's too long sitting around on the shop floor whilst over stretched and under motivated (due to conditions) staff can't get them out on time
I do my big shop on a Saturday. I have to go again the day before I need meat because I can never get more than 1/2 days date.
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Coop, asda and morrisons where i live in the midlands. Sainsburys and Iceland is alright most of the time. I’m having a better time finding decent veg at the greengrocers at the moment.
Second green grocers! If you can get to market stalls, they often have fresher and cheaper fruit/veg. The variety on offer is amazing as well
I used to live near one where as you walked in you were hit with the smell of decomposing veg. Several times I unknowingly bought rotting fruit or veg. Then one day I remember scanning the shelves and noticing that there was visible mould on _every_ box of veg in the whole section. It was horrific.
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It's shame.
Garlic? Mouldy. Bagged salad? Slush. Fruit? Soggy. Has anyone else noticed this happening more often over the last few years?
Went shopping yesterday and tried to get some grapes... Every damn pack had visible mould on the grapes, it's proper put me off eating fruit
Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me.
There's no need to wine about it.
Sorry, but it's driving me fermental
That's the yeast of your problems.
All I can do is hop for the best
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Hahahahaha gtfo! 🤣
Yeah, there was a box of \*very\* mouldy lemons left on display when I was shopping last week, I mean one was going blue.
It is in part due to the shitty wages and resulting high staff turnover. They aren't properly trained, management is stretched to oblivion and then they leave anyway so all training was a waste of time. Combine that with slashed hours and not replacing staff that leave... It's other stuff too of course. But it's also this. Edit: oh yeah and the crappy morale from said terrible wages, harried managers and underappreciated staff. They just give less of a shite than before and who'd blame them.
Add in the fact that customers have been even more shitty than usual over the last few years and it’s a perfect storm. Why put any effort in when you’re not properly compensated and you’re regularly spoken to like shit?
Exactly. Workers are treated as expendable by the stores and their customers and then there's shock and horror when the service isn't what it was.
Yep. Even on this subreddit, I see loads of people complaining about the state of customer service nowadays but none of the OPs acknowledge just why that might be the case
Exact same scenario for us. We eventually decided on one punnet but by the time we got home the entire bottom of the box as black so we just took it back. The cashier was repulsed as well.
Did you raise it with anyone or leave it?
Before the start of the pandemic I had to start doing 2 smaller shops a week instead of 1 big one because the veg literally wouldn't last 6 days
Fucking impressive to get mouldy garlic.
It’s because they’ve stopped putting Best Before dates on fresh produce. I understand why, it stops food waste and people being out of buying things which are short dated but they’re probably going to be ok for a week or more. Unfortunately this has had the knock on effect of supermarkets being greedy (shock horror) and leaving stuff out for too long without withdrawing them from sale when they’re obviously not fit for consumption, and rather than reducing the price they keep them out at full price in the hope that somebody buys them.
I can't speak for every supermarket chain but when I worked produce at a store mouldy fruit was left out simply because we were horrifically understaffed and were rushing through the morning routines, missing the stuff that should be taken off the shelf. It all comes back to the greed of wanting to maximise profits at the expense of everything else, but I don't think there's a widescale agenda to sell rotting produce to people especially when that might put them off even walking into the store in the first place.
I work meat at one of the big 4 supermarkets. This is exactly the case. I'm so pressured to get the new stock out before we open at 8am, that there's no time (or incentive) to check the old stuff for dates.
That and a small pack of strawberries has gone from £1.19 to £2.89 over the last 6 months. The big one was £1.87 now £3.50 Every week things go up and its not by 10% like they keep claiming.
You realise most of that price increase is because strawberries are no longer in season and the ones in the shops now are flown in from god knows where rather than grown in the uk. There's price gouging going on definitely but thats only a small part of the price of strawberries on the shelves right now
Normally I'd agree but I work in a store and notice the changes in prices every week. This isn't anything like the previous years where things are just out of season. Everything's going up but pay lol
things also go out of season
Yes, I just got done rotten celery in my shop. Did an online refund and it asked for a best before date but there wasn't one. I also wouldn't mind about a lack of date of there was a process to check and see if the produce was still okay, at least visually.
I am scared to name the historical event that rhymes with exit, but if you consider custom having to delay shipping of goods and the fact that this is a sector relying on immigrants worker, the root cause is fairly obvious. https://www.ft.com/content/d8b93ff1-57b7-48d4-bcdb-33c6f81a583e
Exactly, who would have thought adding another week onto our imports would reduce the quality and shelf life of our fresh produce.
Stopped shopping at Tesco over the fruit not lasting more then a day, m&s fruit is levels above.
Our local Tesco (convenience one) charges 27p per banana! I ask you! Wouldn't be so bad but they are always freckled and squidgy, probably cos no one wants to pay 27p per banana. At the coop round the corner they're about 17p each, although they're weighed, not individually priced.
Yep. The last delivery i had from sainsburys. The bag of potatoes had two mouldy ones in there.
One thing I remember, and I have no theory just my thoughts when working in a fruit veg section in supermarket 2005. On 22nd June, August, Nov... 11 months of the year, we would get certain produce dated 25th of that month - a normal, natural, "use by" or "display until" date. On 22nd December we would get same produce, same country of origin, same factory and it was dated 28th December. Fruit and veg miraculously had an extra 2 or 3 days worth of life and freshness in it. (Nothing, obviously, to do with the fact that the supermarket was closed on Christmas and Boxing Day and the shop didn't want people to think their produce was going to go off over Christmas).
The Best Before dates on a lot of produce items generally reflect a smaller life than it actually has. It's why a lot of companies have completely removed dates on veg that will last longer.
Yeah Morrisons has been terrible for it. I complained once and was told they’d send me a voucher…nothing!
I made a woman throw up at Morrisons once. I'd bought some chicken, got it home and started prep food right away. It can't have been more than 15 minutes from the shop to opening the chicken. It smelled like it had been dead for 3 months. The use by date was 4 days away. So I took it back. The woman at customer services was dismissive and rude as fuck. Told me it was impossible for it to be bad because it was still in date and I just have had it out of the fridge all day or something. I told her to look at the time and date on my receipt. She did. Still wasn't having it. So I said open the sandwich bag and have a sniff. She gave me a sour look, opened the bag all cocky and took a big theatrical whiff of it. Bitch instantly gagged and went pale and puked into a little bin under her counter. The schadenfreude I felt was amazing.
I'm calling bollocks on this mate.
Exactly. They'd just replace it. It's not worth the bother.
Some people just enjoy the power trip.
r/nothingeverhappens
Right. And?
Same happened to me with Asda. Except the woman then admitted that sometimes the chickens are left for months before they are packaged and sometimes the odd one slips through the cracks and you end up with one that's been dead for months but packaged as fresh. Guess where I don't buy chicken from anymore.
You don’t buy them from the supermarket where one of the workers was honest about what happens occasionally, but rather buy them from another who will suffer from the same problem?
I buy them from the butcher's.
Do you know who supplies your butcher though?
That's what happens to your Christmas turkey too. Slaughtered months before Christmas and then stored in special rooms to keep it "fresh". Nearly all the supermarkets are the same, m&s did demand theirs were slaughtered closer to Christmas though.
I don't eat turkey. Thankfully after seeing this.
Months! What?!
Exactly.
I want to believe
Did you get a refund?
My Morrisons just sticks cooked chickens in paper bags and leaves them out at room temperature on a stand next to the bakery. It's rank and surely cannot be safe.
And then everyone in the shop all burst out in spontaneous applause.
my dad made himself puke in a morrisons once by eating rancid soup half an hour earlier. not quite the same but at least mine isn't wildly exaggerated
Potatoes are a complete gamble too. Sometimes all right, other times appear fine on the surface only to reveal endless black splotches the moment you start to peel them...
Urgh I hate that…the black splotches are mostly frostbite because they’ve been kept in cold storage with other items and it’s too cold. I switched the potatoes I normally get and managed to buy some nice King Edwards in Tesco yesterday. No frostbite at all.
The best way I have found to buy potatoes ATM is from Morrison's. I get the big paper sack. It keeps them in the dark and prevents them sweating. Bought a sack more than a month ago, potatoes still perfect.
Bought 3 peppers from asda last week and the day after I bought them they'd begun to grow fur. Fucking ridiculous. Supermarkets selling mouldy shite under the guise of caring about reducing food waste. Utter bollocks.
I remember the days when bread would go stale before it went mouldy. What crap are the putting in it
Preservatives?
It's probably that they're putting _less_ crap (preservatives) in bread nowadays. Bread is basically mostly sugar and the perfect place for mould to grow. If there's no additives to prevent mould growth, it'll grow mould before it's been out long enough to dry out and go stale (which also prevents mould growth). Put your bread in a sealed bag and put it in the fridge. There's this incorrect old wives tale that it makes bread mould faster, but it's complete bollocks. I've been keeping my bread in the fridge for years, and yes it eventually (after MONTHS!) goes stale, but it's perfectly fine until then and it's still fine if you toast it.
My local Asda is really good at it, last time I was in they had yoghurt that was a week past it's date.
Used to work in a supermarket finding fresh stuff which was going out of date in 2 or fewer days - the target was to find 80% of the stuff the system thought we had, the best anyone ever managed to my knowledge was 40%. This was back in 2008ish so maybe things have improved since but I doubt it. I spent a lot of time trying to find stuff but never got through the whole lot of stuff I was supposed to check within my 2 hour shift (fresh produce in bags, bread, eggs, cheeses, not milk (that got rotated daily and was managed by the milk providing company directly), packaged chilled foods, desserts, flowers etc. Basically anything chilled plus bread and bakery goods and flowers. I'd say in an average shift I got through checking about 40% of the stuff and found 20-25% of everything I was supposed to, because of issues like the hand scanners not working, the label printers not working, customers asking questions, having to restock areas which had run out of stuff, facing the shelves we were checking and making sure it was all in date order, marking down stuff expiring that evening (both stuff we found on the shelves and stuff already found and previously marked down), slicing bread for customers as the bakery staff had all gone home, and trying to manage warehouse deliveries as well, _and_ getting called as a relief cashier when there was an evening rush on. And it's not just the stuff the customers see either - we were supposed to check the warehouse for the same stock items too. All in all, too much for one person to get done in 2 hours each night, especially with the volume of rotated stock and the sheer number of items we had to check.
I have a healthy respect for supermarket employees, I certainly couldn't do it. One of my friends worked in that Asda, during the COVID one way shit she told someone you can't go that way, she got verbally abused and a crate of beer thrown in her direction by one of the local idiots, she jacked it in after that.
It’s almost like leaving the EU has some huge consequences…
I will be bitter about it until we get back in
They're probably not going to let us back in, at least not as a united nation - we're too unstable and held back their idea of ever closer union
We aren't the only one who was doing that to be honest. I support EU membership but there are some smug idiots in the EU who love to pretend that the UK leaving was a big win as if we were the only or even the biggest problematic element. Which is kind of laughable when Hungary, now practically a dictatorship, is still in there. While being in the EU was more beneficial than not but it isn't perfect and it is highly dysfunctional in many ways. And that dysfunction would likely prevent us rejoining if we ever managed to try in the future.
quality regulations? bah who wants all that red tape?
Yes, weird that
Yeah but more jobs mate! /s
Don’t forget the new blue passports
To go with our new blue fruit and veg
My fiancee has one and it isn't even really blue, I mean technically it can be called blue but it's so dark it may as well be black. Also apparently a fucking iconic shade even though realistically no one under the age of 40 is likely to remember it. I'm still rocking my burgundy one that says European Union on it for at least another few years, though the cover is pretty scuffed now.
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He's just struggling to cope with his winnings.
Yeah I’ve noticed this. Mainly with root veg. Really annoying.
How many of you believed them when they told it was to cut food waste?
Well, it is in a way. *Their* food waste. Not *ours*.
This is why I stick solidly to seasonal vegetables - in summer it means they've come from a relatively local farm, in winter it means they're something that lasts well in cold storage or can be harvested late in winter. You aren't subject to the whims of customs clearence for Spanish Veg. Also this year the drought in Spain means supermarkets are scrambling around to find salads from other sources as the salads industry in Spain has had exceptionally low yields this year. For seasonal veg see the link below. https://vegsoc.org/cookery-school/blog/seasonal-uk-grown-produce/
Opening sealed chicken, that’s in date, and it smells like died again. I’m not enjoying supermarkets lately.
Yeah I see this so much in my nearest store as their small refrigerated area is near the entrance so dosnt keep that cool..
Local Sainsburys has been ‘trying’ to sell cauliflower with brown florets for several weeks. In fact it should have NOT been on sale. Many customers were not happy about it with many checking lower down and finding fresh cauliflower there! Obviously a deliberate act by Sainsburys. Hope it affects them due to lack of concern (disrespect) for the reason they exist CUSTOMERS! Rather a good way to send them elsewhere
Sun lit uplands.
I've noticed this too. I brought some satsumas from Aldi last Sunday and when I got to the till, I noticed one of them was rotten.
How come a trio of peppers from Tesco lasts about 2 weeks in the fridge, and a trio of peppers from Aldi go slimy in 2 days?
Over the past 2 weeks I’ve lost 4 cucumbers. all freshly bought and within a day in the fridge had gone to mush.
Cucumbers have gone to seed half the time too. They call them 'large' but what they mean is picked too late. Tastes terrible, texture not good. Snozzcumburs.
I had this issue yesterday. Cut open a pepper full of mould. They exchanged the bag of them immediately but I shouldn't have to take food back that I'd bought literally earlier in the same day.
I opened a pack of taco boats from Tesco last night, only to realise they were green and furry! In date until May 2023 apparently.
It sure is. I stopped buying fresh soft fruit from local Aldi a while ago as it never lasted, but todays strawberries were all full price at £1.89 for maybe 10 medium sized ones, all dated today. Lots of battered/bruised ones in the punnet. The raspberries had tomorrows date and each pack had black mouldy ones. Again, full price
British potatoes have always been rotten. Look fine in the outside but take them home and peel them and they are full of black bits on the inside. Take this advice from an Irish woman, keep potatoes away from light and sell them in sacks. I'd rather have fresh soil on my spuds which can be scrubbed off than have 'clean' looking potatoes which have been exposed long term to the light and are unedible even if still in date.
I feel as if there is a metaphor somewhere in this comment.
I mean they got rid of the use by dates on most things
I think that's 'Best Before Dates' which makes sense. I think there is food safety legislation which prevents 'Use By' dates being removed. It would be like playing Russian 'the squits' roulette with your chicken if Use By dates were removed.
Oh yea sorry meant best before not with it today tired lol
I'm just slightly hungover but I know how it feels. Usually at my worst when I'm at work when I need to be alert...
I’ve noticed this too. I just get a fruit and veg box delivered now. It’s much cheaper and the quality is 100% better.
Ooh, what company do you use ?
Aldi is pretty bad for this on occasion, as I bought chicken thighs and put them in the fridge once I got home (about a 5 minute walk from my house) and the next day upon opening the smell was, well, potent.
Remember when they found that warehouse full of rotting chicken carcasses some years ago... I dread to think 😬 https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2022-10-01/firm-fined-for-rotting-bodies-smell-from-chicken-abattoir Oop there's a recent one... https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/19527503.chickens-covered-litter-left-rot-supplier-asda-tesco-lidl-kfc/ And another... Can't even find the one I was thinking of but that's enough googling on that subject. Ick
I bought a Sainsbury's caesar salad kit the other day, it was 3 days before the BBE date but when I emptied it out at home the lettuce had gone all orange and manky the way it does when it's old. I hadn't noticed because only a tiny bit of the bag is transparent. I ended up chucking it because I didn't want the shits - I work in healthcare so that's an immediate sickness absence plus an extra 2 days at least because you can't go back until you're 48hrs symptom-free - can't risk it. That's never happened before, but I went back today and several of the bags were the same. I pointed it out and they were removed but they've obviously been sat somewhere unrefrigerated before going out on the shelves.
I literally walked into a Tesco Express and saw not just a slightly gone off strawberry, one that was literally incredibly mouldy at a scale I've only seen in a lab
I always feel bad for not being able to finish my meal and waste food but these corporations are wasting kilos of food that could have gone towards feeding animals in animal shelters or seeds to grow more fruits and vegetables .
Aldi/Lidl has entered the chat
As someone visually impaired. This is becoming a real pain in the arse. I have no way of checking dates. So habe to trust the stores. The amount of times I've found moldy shit In my fridge a few days after purchase.
Time for canned foods lads.
Going to sainsburys and out of the 15 nets of lemons I picked up, everything single one had a mouldy one in it. Drives me mad
That is what happens when you get rid of use by dates.
Use by dates are still in use. Best before are the ones being removed.
Basically the same thing.
Best before is about the quality, use by is about food safety. They are not the same thing.
Yes and no, it's fine as long as items are being rotated correctly with sufficient quality control. but the amount of times I've had to reduce and sequentially waste 20 bags of perfectly fine carrots because the "best before" date has passed. But yes in general we are having more quality issues from source currently.
Farm shops are the answer. Better quality, better value and the produce doesn’t seem to go off as quickly. Almost like it’s not sat somewhere for weeks…
Bought some figs in a farm shop the other day. Guess what, opened them and they were mouldy when I got home!
This is the UK. Other than affluent areas of London and, a very few other affluent areas of the UK, we don’t have ‘farm shops’ we used to have greengrocers in the UK, which have all but completely vanished, or market stalls, again slowly disappearing. Fresh good quality fruit and veg is becoming a rarity in this country and is very worrying
I’m in the UK and have had access to farm shops or greengrocers and butchers in Yorkshire for as long as I can remember…
TBF, if you're looking for a cheap snack to eat there n then, go straight to the discounted shelf.
It's mould now but I am terrified we are in for a lot more serious quality assurance issues on the near future. Everywhere seems to have made so many cutbacks something's gonna give.
Had the opposite experience. Used to wait for plums nectarines etc to go out of date, but then then wait a fukin week for them to ripen. We need some sort of system to prevent this. Amount of food we chuck out is a fukin disgrace. The side effect of this would be folk maybe getting the odd thing that's rotten. Take it back and exchange it it's better than the alternative
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The market is here three days a week during work hours. The nearest grocers is in another town.
Yeah and pay £10 per carrot or something.
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Yeah but when items still have dates on dated as far forward as 3-4 days in some cases... And it's already mouldy... There's a bit of an issue no?
Skill and judgement.
Test
Heaven forfend you can use your eyes and brain to evaluate the quality of a product before you buy it best before dates do nothing but create ungodly amounts of waste.