Seriously Sainsburys?

[StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes]

You honestly have no substitution for three different bottles of white wine in the whole huge shop? Really?

I hope Sainsburys and other grocers are not delivering to Downing Street, except perhaps baby food for Wilfrid Johnson. Perhaps a few days or weeks or months with the Prime Minister having to suffer from lack of choice of food would make him realise he is entirely responsible for this. Instead of imposing economic sanctions on the French.

On the last time I did an online shop prior to Covid, they couldn't manage to substitute a bag of potatoes, despite there being multiple bags of potatoes available online. Turns out that 5kg of white potatoes cannot be substituted with 2 x 2.5kg bags of white potatoes, they're 'completely different', according to customer services.

Are you ill? Just go to the shop yourself if the pickers aren't good enough for you!

Who pissed on your cornflakes Bryony? As you could see if you read the full thread i did go myself 🙄

@StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes

Who pissed on your cornflakes Bryony? As you could see if you read the full thread i did go myself 🙄

Great!

Interesting sub from Sainsbury’s today: 1 whole watermelon substituted with 30 packs of pre sliced watermelon at a total cost of £32.. I get the logic but no thank you!

£32 ? Wow thats a whole lotta watermelon 😂

Don't they wave the cost difference when they sub?

@rantymcrantface66

Don't they wave the cost difference when they sub?

Yes.

@budgun

I'm really trying not to be a dick, but I can't imagine a situation where bottled water is ever necessary.

I have a child (well a teen now) who is autistic and only drinks bottled water. He doesn't drink juice at all, or milk, or tap water. He can tell the difference between the waters too. For as long as that's all he will drink, I shall continue to buy it.

There is a tap!!!!

An option, yes, it it's not for everyone.

Unfortunately, I have one of those, too. He will only drink tap water the once a day when he has his medication and from a very specific mug. See also an individual carton of apple juice with his breakfast. He won't touch anything from a big carton.

It took most of last year for him to finally accept a home made sandwich instead of a shop bought tuna or salmon and cucumber sandwich.

My youngest, also autistic, takes a bottle to school with his packed lunch because he dropped his sistema bottle, years ago, and scratched it, and now, all re-usable bottles, of any brand, are declared broken and refused.

@rantymcrantface66

Don't they wave the cost difference when they sub?

No, they send a voucher for the price difference.

Tesco waive the additional cost of the sub.

Yes another one who buys bottled water for teen with autism. Only 500ml bottles are considered acceptable as well and wouldn't accept one of those being refilled by a larger bottle. It's the only way she will drink so I will continue to buy and currently stockpile as there is no alternative.

Another online picker here, I agree that it's unlikely that there was no white wine at all to sub. It could be a lazy picker like your DH suggested or maybe an inexperienced one. There have been odd occasions when we have had to use agency staff due to the regulars isolating, they generally get thrown straight into the job with only a few minutes training. It does slow the pick down when lots of items need subbing like we are having to at the moment, although it only takes a few extra seconds to find an alternative and put the info into the handset for each item, when the store has 10's of 1000's of items to pick that morning it can add hours onto the overall pick time which could delay vans leaving so the deliveries will all be late. It is possible that if this store has staff shortages and they are under a lot of pressure they might be prioritising Subs on essentials but not everything, in order to ensure that all the customers get a delivery rather than have to cancel whole orders at the last minute.

I guess that makes sense Cheesecake, despite me being unreasonably miffed at no wine I am actually very grateful that almost everything else is being delivered, especially after seeing the empty shelves in the store.

Question, do the pickers choose the subs themselves using common sense or is it dictated by some sort of app system thingermejib?

The first Sunnis suggested for you but if you think it’s not suitable you can bypass it and put in a different sub of your own choosing

*the first sub

If the picker was very young or not knowledgeable on wine l can understand why no substitute was given because with respect how the hell are they supposed to know which one out of the many hundred different varieties you would prefer?

There are shortages in certain items because the supermarket s have lost hundreds of foreign lorry drivers, something to do with them now having to pay tax, is what l got told.

Re subs, the handset does make suggestions, mostly they make sense but are sometimes way off, it's up to the picker to decide to go with the suggestion or make their own decision, today my handset twice told me to sub fresh rhubarb with strawberries, I no subbed that as there really was no alternative that made sense. My wine knowledge is limited to knowing it comes in different colours so usually I rely on the handset suggestion there and hope its a sensible one.

Ok all makes sense, still think any old white could have been subbed cos i stated by ticking the subs box i was happy if they needed to and if it was a really bad choice i could refuse the sub ( like if they subbed alcohol free or really sweet stuff) anyway alls well that ends well as i got a couple in store and a couple of other things they said would be missing so everyone in the house is now happy….. or will be after wine later 😁

Oh and thanks pickers for answering my questions.

@budgun

I'm really trying not to be a dick, but I can't imagine a situation where bottled water is ever necessary.

I have a child (well a teen now) who is autistic and only drinks bottled water. He doesn't drink juice at all, or milk, or tap water. He can tell the difference between the waters too. For as long as that's all he will drink, I shall continue to buy it.

There is a tap!!!!

An option, yes, it it's not for everyone.

I don’t often buy bottled water but when I do it’s Evian for still and Badoit for fizzy. Like @budgun teen I can taste the difference between tap water and bottled water and between different bottled waters. I wouldn’t drink tap water in a hotel or motorway service station.

I buy bottled sparkling water as I like fizzy drinks (as my teeth attest) and it's been very hard to get supplies recently. Also there's been big gaps on fresh fruit and veg shelves. Also big gaps in wine though as you say hard to believe there weren't any to substitute.

A friend posted pictures on FB from her supermarket in Cornwall on Friday and all the shelves were empty. Literally.

I was feeling surprised there's not been more press coverage but I suspect the government are urging caution re reporting to prevent panic buying. Possible?

I always keep bottled water in now, as a few years ago, we weren't allowed drink the water out of the tap until the water company fixed the burst pipe, taking days in the middle of nowhere, and then just last week, woke up to red water, again down to water company, and had to wait for it to disperse