Bulk buying tinned croissants (light hearted!)

[Gide]

I promise you, they're actually nice!

Anyway, we're doing a Languages activity day at school next week. One of the activities is 'making' croissants (getting them out of the tin and rolling them into the right shape) Done it before for one class at a time. Next week, there are 6 classes, 180 kids.Off I trotted to Asda to ask if I could click and collect or something as I need 30 tins.

Customer services tell me no, because some people bulk buy and re-sell (wtf?!) and I'd have to phone head office, despite having my school ID on me. So off I go to Sainsbury, who has no such limits and got 20 tins, amazing, given there are normally about 4 on the shelf. I'll pop back in passing for the rest.

Is it a bit batshit to have a limit, which, BTW, isn't mentioned on the shelf? I don't care who gets the money, I'll be paid back. A minor inconvenience to have to go to 2 shops, just a bit of a waste of time.

Which is exactly why supermarkets works out to the last fraction of a penny the impact of a loss leader on their bottom line. In fact the financial issues tend to come from special offers and not loss leaders.

It is well understood that corner shops will stock up on supermarket offers. It is known and taken into account. It may be misunderstood by store managers and by sales assistants, but overall it will have been costed, and in many or most cases the cost of it is borne by the supplier and not the supermarket. I am an accountant, and I used to work for a supermarket.

However it was stated by pps in this thread that the risk is of 'empty shelves' and the consequent and fantastical 'loss of customers' as a result. This is what I was posting about.

I was getting excited about these until I looked at the ingredients list, hoping they were made with butter.

No, they have palm fat and other foul things:

Wheat Flour, Water, Palm Fat, Vegetable Oils (Soybean, Sunflower), Wheat Gluten, Sugar, Dextrose, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Bicarbonate), Alcohol, Salt, Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids), Sea Salt, Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Flavourings, Acidity Regulator (Lactic Acid), Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid), Colour (Beta-Carotene)

I would have bought them but for the palm fat though.

You often hear how croissant hoarding was a major issue in WWII.

Waitrose frozen pain au chocolat

FTW.

Mmm mmm mmm.

OP for Food Tech I have raided two supermarkets for desiccated coconut. They just don't have the stock anymore it seems to be all about JIT delivery. They don't know and can't foresee that Y7 will be making Anzac biscuits on 10th June.

I thought it was pretty standard that supermarkets limit how many of one item you can buy. I’m more surprised that Sainsbury’s allowed you to.

I don’t think you will get anywhere by

Whoops, posted too soon. I meant to delete that last bit.

Rubber: They're not a wholesaler. Empty shelves are bad for business.

It's pretty obvious that they're not a wholesaler. They do not sell at wholesale prices.
As others have pointed out, their automated stock system will refill the shelves the next day.

We had that a few years back where a racial incident was reported. A parent was buying a bulk of advent calendars for a school Xmas thing and the cashier refused to sell her as she ‘would sell them at profit in her corner shop’

How stupid. What does it matter to them who buys the stuff or what they do with it? Their only concern should be that someone buys the stuff.

Not entirely true. Supermarkets have some items they sell for less than they have paid, overall they make a profit because if you go in for one of these products you usually buy a few other things. But if you only buy the one item, in bulk, then they may lose out.

I think it does depend to a certain extent on the shop, my nearest Sainsbury's is just across the road from a large Gurdwara, it's not uncommon to see people with a lot of one or two items in a trolley and staff chat about whether it's a wedding or a different celebration.

Lidl are cool with you buying 60 packets of angel delight, and 30 packets of each of digestive and bourbons. #irrelevant

@XXVaginaAndAUterus I have to ask how you know that!

As others have pointed out, their automated stock system will refill the shelves the next day.

For a fairly niche item like chilled croissant dough, it’s going to take longer to refill than a day. Probably more like a week or two. It’s not like supermarkets buy a lot of excess stock to keep in storage just in case, they buy what they normally sell, and they don’t normally sell 30 in one day in one store. An item like this won’t be restocked until the store was due to get new stock anyway.

That’s not a problem when it’s one item, but if a bunch of people do similar with other items and the store always has dozens of items out of stock for a week or more, it looks bad. Hence limits.

If you go through a checkout while bulk buying you’ll almost certainly get away with it (unless it’s an unusual special where limits are very low and clearly advertised) because the operators are very unlikely to care and most register systems don’t have any kind of notice that a limits been hit. If you try to order online or go through customer services, that’s a different story.