Anyone noticed that the quality of food has declined ?

[FixundFoxi]

Just wondered if anyone had noticed that the quality of fruit and veg has declined massively ? Peppers are bruised, wrinkled and soft, carrots bendy and gnarled looking, even potatoes are soft. Most the meat has sell by dates of a day or two.
Don't have a Waitrose locally (up north) so seems to be universal to ordinary supermarkets like Sainsbos and Asda..

Glad it's not just me that's noticed that something awful has happened to cheese.
My cheese on toasts have been awful and it's so waxy now.

I agree that chicken has gone noticeably downhill in quality and lm also struggling to find decent quality tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.
We do grow a fair few veggies etc... but not enough to sustain us , especially in the winter.

I wonder if it's a combination of Christmas demand, driver shortages, picker shortages and that artic spell, I've noticed a shortage of winter vegetables and poor quality. Leeks, carrots, broccoli, really crappy cauliflower. And the sprouts went black after a few days. That's Sainsbury's and our little coop. Also bruised apples and pears.

F&V in the supermarkets has always been dire in the UK IME. M&S is usually better but £££. We go to Isreal a couple of times a year and the quality of F&V is far better -- due to climate obvs. We have apple and pear trees in our (small) garden and use only frozen veg now. We have berries in patio pots in summer and I will occasionally buy bananas for DD, other than that we don't bother,

Yes quality has reduced in every supermarket, shelves are empty, and costs all gone up! It's a joke TBH - we are being shafted.

I haven’t found this at all with Sainsbugs. My pre Christmas delivery (on the 20th) they emailed in advance to say that one item (out of £150 worth) had a use by date before Christmas and I could refuse it if that was a problem.
The rest all had dates well past Boxing Day. The quality of their fruit, veg, meat and fresh bread is always excellent. Maybe it varies between branches?

OMG that is so right. People voted to leave the EU and their rules on good quality fruit and vegetables and now our shelves are filled with wonky fruits and vegetables because we no longer comply.

If only we were still in the EU we could have shelves filled with quality. But no not anymore. We are now third country status with no nice quality goodies and if you go across the channel to the EU they have shops billowing with excellent food especially fruit and vegetables, their shelves groan with food and as we are now no longer part of the club we have to sit on the sidelines and moan.

It is what people voted for and now they complain but if you stayed in the EU you could eat good quality food tonight.

For various reasons I left it to Christmas Eve to buy something for Christmas day. Went to my local butcher and bought a huge (4.5kg) chicken from a company called Creedy Carver. It was delicious and bore no resemblance to the increasingly wooden and rubbery chicken that i normally buy. It made me realise how revolting supermarket chicken is - even the supposedly higher welfare ones are disgusting these days.

OMG that is so right. People voted to leave the EU and their rules on good quality fruit and vegetables and now our shelves are filled with wonky fruits and vegetables because we no longer comply.

i would much rather wonky fruit and veg are sold than wasted. I don’t think anyone here has claimed to have issues with wonky veg or bent cucumbers. It is the freshness that concerns them. And it seems greengrocers and farm shops don’t have the same issue.

Food is fresher in the EU. Fact. And this whole thread is proving it.

Britain puts up with wonky, bent, unfresh, out of date (dates even missing now) and squashed dented fruits and vegetables. They do not have this problem in the EU and their shelves are groaning with quality. Unlike ours.

What is your problem with wonky veg? Hugely wasteful not too use them. And why the problem with British fruit and veg? And specifically in supermarkets? Not elsewhere? And at this time of year much fruit and veg imported from overseas doesn’t even come from the EU where it is also winter.

Life was better when we belonged to the EU. Fact. We could choose wonky fruit and I have no issue with that, but we also imported the best from the EU. Now we are no longer in the club we are treated as a third country.

My DH keeps commenting on how bad the fruit and veg has got from Tesco. Has anyone actually had a decent packet of satsumas yet? Ours are awful. Mouldy, taste rank and go off very quickly .

I get my fruit snd veg from Costco it’s always better than supermarkets

meat from butchers and just eat less of it, or buy a week or twos worth and freeze

Food is fresher in the EU. Fact. And this whole thread is proving it

I really don't think the fresh thing is down to Brexit, although there is probably some impact on the speed of picking fruit and veg grown in the UK as we don't have enough people to pick the produce.

I think a lot of it is probably down to the weather though - a very wet late winter/early spring, then a very hot summer, then a very wet autumn and then a few weeks of really cold temperatures. The combination has probably caused mayhem and we were warned earlier in the year (so I bought loads of tinned fruit). I think the issue is we were told there would be shortages, and actually we do have the fruit and veg but it's very poor quality. I think I'll just buy more tins.