LIDL bakery counter - I don't understand!

[BeachBlondey]

Is this not the most unhygienic way to sell bread and pastries? With no wrappers on and sitting in the open air. People breath all over the stuff and can handle it without buying. Even in the middle of the pandemic, the food had no covers on. And doesn't it go stale quicker, just sitting there with no packaging? I'm not a germaphobe my any means, but it always seems a bit....ODD.

Yes, Farmer's Markets, everything covered in fly droppings, snot and dirty hands, stale, hard bread, just like our Lidl (except for the hard, stale bread). Fruit & veg is washable, as is meat as long as you rinse it quickly and don't soak it. Mind you washing the bread would at least soften it.

Lidl don't list ingredients as far as I am aware, and if their bakery is the same quality as the rest of their stuff, will contain the same ingredients as other lower priced manufacturers, additives included. For example, spreadable butter containing rapeseed oil.

A toddler in the supermarket puked while standing next to the open bread/pastries area and some erm...splattered from the floor onto the baked goods and baskets. They were in no hurry to remove them 😷
I tend to avoid unwrapped baked goods unless they're being served from behind a counter like in proper bakeries.

Add Morrisons and M&S to your list.

Sainsburys is ok, as is Tesco.

I solved it by not buying uncovered baked goods, or unwrapped either for that matter. Lidl sliced, wrapped bread is fine, I have a breadmaker, I also make soda bread/rolls by hand. I don't sneeze on it or have toddler puke on it, or fluff from coat sleeves over it, and strangers don't maul it. The child in the intro of Bake Up hasn't helped food hygiene, people see her patting the bread and being allowed to mess with it and think it's fine to put hands on stuff that is on show, uncovered or unprotected by snot and bum wiped hands.

People don't like eating peanuts from a publicly shared bowl, why would they buy bread in a similar situation?

Well you obviously wouldn’t buy the one with the teeth marks! As someone who was a child in the 1950s when nothing was prepackaged I’m in the “a peck of dirt won’t hurt you” camp. Lidl Portuguese tarts are the food of the gods.

Lidl Portuguese tarts are the food of the gods

Aren't they just? 😃

They are. As long as I don’t actually see anything befall them I’m good.

Yes, the hospital I work in has a M&S food by the main entrance and the pastries smell delicious, but they're all in an open basket for maximum sneezing/fingering potential 😥
Which is fine, cause I can't imagine there's anyone carrying germs in a hospital, right?

I agree it's just gross 🤮
I won't buy anything unless it's Pre-packed

In the 50's the bakery wasn't kept in heaps in plastic shelving units where people could maul it in droves. At most it was on the counter, mostly covered, and bread was on shelves at the back. Nothing was left out where people could sneeze on it or take a bite and put it back.

Our Lidl has everything out in the open, anyone can touch the produce and breathe all over it. It's right by the entrance as well, so every shopper has to walk past it as they enter the store. I was very surprised that this continued throughout the pandemic. I think it's different in proper bakeries, as they usually have stuff in a glass case and only the staff can access it from the back, and they use tongs. First world problem, I know, but I find it really unappealing. 😪

Some worries are completely justified (sneaky tasters and squeezers) but worrying about people breathing over stuff? You’re already in a building sharing air with however many strangers that have processed it through their nostrils and lungs….

Talking of the pandemic, I thought people would have more understanding of how air in shared spaces works.

Don’t research the water cycle.

I've just had a flash back, to when I was at my elderly Dad's house. When he thought no one was looking, he drank milk straight out of the carton, licking up all the drips. We had been using that milk for our tea's and coffee's. I didn't have any hot drinks after that. 😬

You had different shops then. Nothing was covered. And, while human beings might not have been able to “maul” it, it was easily accessible to flies.

Oh God.

The first time my 20 year old days stayed for the weekend, she came into the kitchen to have a chat with me one evening. Oh how lovely, I thought.

Until she stood up, took the milk out of the fridge, took a big glug and put it back.

You know when something feels like it’s happening in slow motion?

It was a before Christmas. Ds has a sort of studio room in the garage extension. I’m a coward, so his present was a small fridge for the room “to give them more privacy” to keep her the fuck away from my milk

*20 year old ds, not days

Same at Waitrose. Baguettes in an open paper sleeve, in open bins at toddler face level, overpriced and overrated artisan loaves put unwrapped on shelves in the morning and by early afternoon they’re rock hard and been squeezed by countless hands. Their patisserie at least has sliding doors but I hate the bread.

Oh no!

I once caught my ExH cleaning dog shit out of the soles of his football boots, with the potato peeler.... which he wanted to wash and keep afterwards. It went in the bin.

I put Lidl it's all behind a screen and then you have a big device like a rowers oar that you poke into a hole and push the pastries to like a shoot thing and then you pick it up, bag it, weigh it and print the sticker. It's kind of long and annoying.

*in our

But the Waitrose bakery is exactly the same; open so anyone can stick their hand in. Or is Waitrose ok because it has a better class of customer? sniff

As Human Beings, we survived most of our first 400,000 years eating raw mammoth and gnu, eating roots pulled out of the ground etc. I'm not overly worried about other people breathing.

That's Howard Hughes territory!

I don't mind the Lidl bread display but always take on nearer the back. I do with they provided bags big enough for a loaf however as I end up messing about tearing two to fit around the cob loaf

Yes, accessible to flies, but we seem to have more of them these days. We only had one baker shop and had to ask for everything to be served, no access to goods like these days. The only people sneezing on it were the staff. They didn't wear gloves to handle the bread either. There wasn't much of a range of things available, our cakes mostly came in boxes with Lyons on in the old days and contained butter and sugar instead of palm oil and sweetener.

Unsliced bread too, made with wheat flour, not a mix of wheat and soya or chickpea flour. No wonder people say bread bloats them these days, they are eating legume bread.