Anyone notice food quality declining really badly?

[heartbroken22]

Just had a block of cheese go off that would have normally lasted a lot longer. Didn't do anything different. But might have to change supermarkets now.

I tend to shop at Tesco as it's a bit of a trek away I only go once a week and every week most of the berry type fruit/grapes have at the most 2 days including that days date on, some berries/lemons even have mould on them.
Easy peelers, many a time I've stuck my finger through a mushy one.
Bread is another item that has an incredibly short date on recently and a pack of wraps had mould spots on even before their BBD.

I don't really have time to shop at the big supermarket a few times a week so was considering using smaller local shops a bit more regularly for these perishable items but on pickng up a box of 6 eggs in one local farm shop and seeing they were £3.75 it made me consider otherwise, those prices really are out of my budget.

Definitely agree with this. The last 3 weeks we have been shopping at Aldi the tangerines have been mouldy. Every net pack had one mouldy fruit. I keep meaning to contact them about it. Onions are soft and carrots are bendy. Leeks go slimy quicker. I have Fibro too @Evenstar and if I'm making soup I buy the ready shopped packs but have been put off by them not being fresh despite there being at least a couple of days until the use by date. If they aren't slimy they smell vinegary as the onions have gone off.
We have a local fruit stall in the town, when my DH is off we are going to get our fruit and veg from there and see how we get on.

Agree about the fruit and veg and supermarkets selling older produce not lasting in the fridge.

Yes, so switched to Ocado and doing much better. Don't spend anymore than we did in Sainsbury's and very little food waste now.

No. I haven't noticed this really. Only with chocolate. It seems to taste a bit weird these days. Even had some odd tasting Bendicks Bittermints last week and I usually love them.

Yes.
For the first time in my life I'm now throwing away lemons on a regular basis because they've gone mouldy!
I'm also a massive fan of salads and have eaten them many times a week for probably 20 years, but have recently quit them because all salad ingredients suddenly just taste of water. They're awful. I often put goats cheese on top, and the supermarket ranges have stopped tasting...'goaty'.
I've also always bought myself a bunch of supermarket fresh flowers each week for the kitchen table. The quality of them now is terrible - it's as if they've been frozen and thawed out (nothing would surprise me!)

A lot of issues with non-fresh, from drinks, to ready meals, is that due to health concerns, recipes have changed, less salt and less sugar, or even worse, sugar substitutes. They taste worse, and don't last as long. It's why everything has to be refrigerated now, lower sugar and salt content, equals shorter life.

I’ve noticed that with Aldi carrots - we usually buy several bags, but in the last three to four months or so they seem to develop slimy spots quite quickly, so we end up throwing away quite a few.

Better get used to it until we rejoin the single market and customs union!

Supermarket waste might have gone down but they are selling us shit that still ends up in the bin , except it is us paying the price for it now😡 .

Yes! Exactly, they’re making a tidy profit and waxing on about how much waste they’re saving because it’s all ending up in our bin! I had to bin a £3 punnet of raspberries after a day due to the mould. Couldn’t afford to buy more so DD fruit consumption has gone right down. It might be more cost effective to get a bus into town and go to the market to see if the quality is better.

I have noticed that organic carrots now taste like normal carrots, and normal carrots are inedible- you could perhaps give them to horses, because they're not suitable for people anymore.

Not just supermarket stuff but eating out too, standards and quality have plummeted... at pretty much the same rate prices have rocketed.

Supply issues, Brexit (yes i know) & EU staff going back home and extending shelf lives?

I have not noticed this as much in France, prices have risen a lot too but quality etc etc still the same.

..oh yes Tesco still made £1billion last year and paid out £500m in dividends....

Cathedral City cheese is now inedible. Just waxy and tasteless, and it resembles the lower fat crud that we bought once to try. I haven't bought it for quite a while whereas would use 2 packs a week sometimes. Some of the supermarket cheeses are the same. I always found the Lidl cheese was like that although after a couple of attempts I gave up trying as I don't like eating soap.

Yep. Was cooking bacon the other day and, despite being in date, it was weirdly grey and shivelled in the pan.

Have pretty much stopped buying meat from supermarket and relying on butchers now. Last bit of chicken breast I bought from Tesco was all sinew and no meat.

Bought satsumas at Coop that starting growing grey fur within a couple of days.

Food standards are abysmal and imported food is spending too long stuck in port.....

I know longer buy fruit or veg from Lidl. the onions were rotten inside and had to be thrown away.

I only buy loose veg now in sainsburys

I was having this exact same thought this morning. The quality gap between the food on offer here and in a regular Spanish supermarket is astounding, and the prices are lower.

its driving me crazy shopping more than once a week, root veggies don’t last a week, I’m sure I used to buy kilos at a time. And why are cauliflowers now tiny? Like single portion for the same price.

Yes. Slowly decreasing quality and sizes.

I wonder if the same thing is happening in the rest of Europe. Suspect not.

Can't remember the last time I got some garlic bulbs that weren't already dried out, mouldy or sprouting.

Imports are now stuck in brexit paper trails for longer

Not just fresh veg either - I always have a bag of 'fine green beans ' in the freezer. In the past the beans have been young, green, tender and whole. These days they're old, yellow, stringy and in small bits.

Aged parent has ready meals 2-3 times a week and the quality has nosedived. Fatty, gristly meat, too much pasta, too much salt and sugar, tastes greasy

Yy to cauliflowers -used to be the size of a football, now the size of a cricket ball and leaf to curd ratio is ridiculous. I've noticed market stalls usually have decent sized ones though

@babyproblems ohh gosh I'll have to go have a look at that!

@ComtesseDeSpair same with takeaway food. I'd rather not buy any. Chips were left raw on last 2 occasions and burgers don't taste the same!