To think this supermarket has lost the plot.....

[user1898901]

Long standing mnetter- name-changed due to location outing.
We are a medium town on 10 miles off the M5 in the West Country (large A road).

I went to my local Tesco this morning at 9am (5 days after the snow we had last week thawed) and this was what it looked like- still Armageddon:

Gave up and went to Lidl 5 minutes later, a tenth of a mile away- shelves full of fresh veg and salad:

AIBU to think Tesco has lost the plot, which I'm sad about as it's a British company and Lidl, obviously, isn't. Tesco doesn't even sell much British meat and veg in comparison to Lidl, who seem to be championing British producers. And now I can't actually BUY any fresh food in Tesco.

All last week (in the snow and aftermath) it looked like this, but Lidl seemed to cope. But the roads have been clear for 5 days! What is going on?

They seemed to have good supplies of chocolate, crisps and biscuits though so I can still feed the family :)

It's called 'just in time' in logistics. You / the supermarket orders just enough to cover a certain number of days in order to keep food waste to a minimum. Lidl may have had lots of food in cold stores or may be sourcing the food from local points, hence it appears not to be affected by the motorways. Tesco may have been expecting deliveries from further afield.

The supermarkets can't really win, they get told that they store too much food, then in times like now they are lambasted for not having enough.

If people are wanting to return to the simple olden days then we ought to expect more empty shelves. We can't have it all.

Delivery hasn't arrived yet.. so what?

The shit people post on here.

Ha, knew this would be having a go at Tesco before I opened it. Why do people here hate it so much? And yet they adore crappy Lidl/Aldi, don't get it.

false priest are YOU one of those people?

Lost the plot? Because they didn't have vegetables and you had to drive a whole 5 minutes to go to another supermarket to buy British products which is what you wanted anyway?

I think people in general have lost the plot. Have people really post the ability to understand that not everything can be perfect at all times? The amount of complaining on this site alone about issues directly caused by the snow was pathetic. People expecting schools to open regardless, people expecting buses on time! It’s like people can’t cope when there is the slightest alteration to their normal routine. Get a grip. Shit happens, deal with it instead of whingeing.

lavenderhidcote you couldn't be more wrong- I try to support domestic British producers and companies as much as possible.

I would like Tesco to still be around to trade in a couple of years but the powers that be should be aware of this- it has been like this round here for the last week which is ridiculous (not that they read mumsnet)

More local would be great :)
Anecdotally when I pick up a piece of meat or seasonal veg in Lidl it is usually British, that seems to happen a lot less often in Tesco.

I'm just venting and giving Tesco a bit of tough love :)

Yes, I agree, it's not very good. It may be the timing of their deliveries. I don't know if they still fill up overnight or if the delivery arrives later in the day.

Or it could be the head office forecasting is wrong and not based on predictions about the weather and the aftermath (people go crazy after the snow).

Either way, the bottom line is that the customer sees empty shelves and don't care how that happened and it's very competitive out there.

I am another that doesn't particularly rate Lidl. They are great on price but find them poor on quality, variety and customer service and would far prefer to shop at the big 4.

I'm sure Tesco are really taking notice of people whining on MN.

TeaAddict is correct.

Our Tesco is like that, county city a couple of miles of the M5. Oddly Sainsbury's isn't, nor Morrisons, Asda, Aldi or Lidl. Nor are the far more rural Coops and Nisa, just Tesco.

Something has gone wrong with their procedures for snow.

Far from hating Tesco, they are our go to supermarket for the stuff we can't buy locally - which is why I know how empty their shelves are. I now about the others due to a local facebook conversation - the comparison pictures are clear - only Tesco has not managed to re-stock!

Because the whole logistic chain got broken last week with lorry’s and products not being where they should have been, a lot of fresh food will have gone to waste which means that will need disposing of before the new deliveries can be collected. Lots of lorries won’t have been where they needed to be when things did clear and sitting in the traffic will have fucked up drivers hours.

It is going to take time for things to get back to normal

Tesco are notorious for treating their suppliers badly and for driving out smaller, independent shops.

If people shop elsewhere, well, Tesco deserve it.

it seems to be a UK thing - not talking about empty shelves after panic buying.

Other countries don't seem to have empty shelves like we do. If they run out of something, maybe they put something else but they don't end up with nothing like we do - and quite often.

I know we are an island, but for a so-called modern country, we are terribly unorganised.

I don't know Bumdisease. Social Media is very powerful these days. Whining MN users are just as much customers as whining Twitter and Facebook users and I know they certainly take notice of the latter.

The point is all the other shops have managed to get stock. Something seems to have gone very wrong with tesco logistics. Lidil and Iceland have remained fully stocked since Monday after the snow went.

Interesting as at the weekend our nearest Asda superstore had empty shelves but the Tesco superstore was fully stocked. Probably in our case just down to delivery lorries getting along the M62 or not before it was closed overnight.

Our Waitrose had some empty shelves, mainly salad stuff and some vegetables I just put it down to the deliveries being delayed after the snow, I commented to DH that hopefully it should be back to normal at the weekend, and bought alternatives. Or went to Marks to top up