To think "big" weekly shops just don't work anymore (produce freshness)

[necromumda]

Do you find fruit and vegetables are spoiling really quickly these days, compared to the past? I've tried a few of the supermarkets and have come to the conclusion that , if you want fruit and veg to stay fresher for longer, a few shops a week is the best. Goodbye to the big weekly shop?

I’ve found this too.

Also found that. Big shop good for tins and stock-cupboard items like lentils but not for fruit and veg

Yes I've found that too. I can't buy a big packet of tomatoes of about 10 and expect them to last 7 days. Our fresh fruit and veg last us maybe 4 days at the most before going squishy or mouldy.
My tomatoes went mouldy and furry after 3 days last week

Also find that fruit and veg from Aldi lasts longer and seems to be fresher than Asda.

I grow more myself than I used to. Agree Aldi stuff stays fresher too.

I bought raspberries from Aldi and they were all mouldy the next day. Morrisons is far better for fruit and veg imo.

Yep, I am finding things I have bought are often spoiled the day after. And my fridge is fine.

I do, but I’ve been shopping at Aldi and find their produce doesn’t last at all well.

I’ve gone back to Morrison’s online and am really impressed with their ‘wonky’ fruit and veg. Better than Aldi, big box of veg is £3.50.

We shop online and do 2 a week for this reason - usually on Monday (for the week) and Friday (for the weekend). That works well for us but we do have a delivery pass so no paying for separate delivery slots.

Our veg (from tesco) lasts really well, but we've recently bought a new fridge, which I think makes all the difference. I've noticed most foods take longer to spoil now!

Yeah... now do top up shopping for fresh stuff once or twice a week. We were wasting far too much.

Keep fruit in a fruit bowl, with bananas kept separately somewhere else.
Treat tomatoes, peppers and courgettes as fruit.

It's potatoes and carrots in my house. I can't understand how people can get through sacks of them. I can't even get a 1.5kg bag without a good amount of them sprouting and going soft and every time I buy a pack of carrots I go to use them just a couple of days later to find them absolutely rotten.

Take your veg out of plastic bags. They last longer.

I keep potatoes for weeks - they do go soft but they are still perfectly edible. Onions too. I store these in a dark cupboard.

Where are you keeping your carrots? I put mine in the salad crisper and they stay nice for ages, they do go bendy after a while though.

Yes, I find things aren't lasting as well as before. I think two shops a week is a good idea, might switch to this when kids are a bit older and eating more.

I do still use the potatoes but I struggle to peel them when they're spongey so end up cutting off more than normal. I have a large plastic crate in the kitchen where I keep carrots and potatoes (they're really the only "hard" veg we use thanks to fussy children, everything else like cauliflower or broccoli which I have myself I buy frozen to avoid waste.) I just remember my mum buying a big sack of potatoes whenever we needed one and it would sit in the corner of the kitchen and never seemed to sprout like they do now (maybe occasionally once you got right to the bottom but certainly not within a week).

Don't have space in the fridge normally as we always have a lot of salad stuff which fills the drawers but I do get the carrots in there when I can, the last ones which went off were in the crate.

I think part of the problem is just that our kitchen is tiny so even the coolest parts aren't that cool.

I agree. We do a "main" shop at the weekend and then pick up extra veg and salad stuff through the week when we know we'll use it in the next two days.

I know that's not doable for everyone but I actually prefer it and another advantage of not just doing one big shop is we tend to have little or no food waste. If I did it all at once I'd get to Thursday and be throwing out soggy lettuce and wrinkled soft veg like tomatoes and mushrooms.

I prefer to buy fruit and veg frequently rather than once a week. If you're buying once a week and they last well, it suggests to me that they've been covered in nasty chemicals. I have a farmer friend and I've started growing a lot more veg since I learnt about the crap they routinely spray. (He's a beef farmer not cereals but has shown me various articles in farming papers. I won't even drink ordinary milk now.

Yep. Necessitated the need for special fruit and veg storage containers. Won’t spruik the brand I got but it was a game changer. Even cut herbs last the week in these.

I’m in Australia and have definitely noticed a difference over the years in this regard. We are busy, get food delivered and have no time during the week to top up on fruit and veg so had to find a storage option that worked. I did find stuff from the dedicated fruit and veg shops lasted longer than the stuff from supermarkets but that didn’t help when we needed a once a week delivery of everything together.

I genuinely don't find this, i used to but it has been noticeably better since we got a new fridge, this time of year I get my tomatoes, cucumbers, sitting onions, radishes etc from the garden which helps. But potatoes, onions and carrots etc last ages

Um, I don't think you were ever supposed to buy fresh fruit and veg and expect it to last for a week? The way you do a weekly shop is to plan your menu with the things that need to be very fresh in the first day or two, things that last a few days in the middle of the week, and frozen/tinned things at the end of the week.

We do a monthly freezer and cupboard shop.

Eggs and veggies come from the garden.

However this year we have been lucky with meat. We got a good deal on 1/2 a pig from a local farm. Then we were given 2 roadkill deer so we have about a years worth of meat.

Oh, that's not potatoes and carrots, though. They really should last weeks/months. Are you taking them out of the plastic bag and keeping them dark?

I didn't realise this wasn't the norm in the UK. It shocked me when I first moved here though as I was use to having plums be good for a couple of weeks.