Sweet boxes on Facebook?! 🤢

[Thewiseoneincognito]

I’m a member on a local Facebook buy swap group and it’s constantly spammed with people selling pizza boxes filled with sweets often photographed on a fluffy dog hair infested rug. Does anyone else see them? Does anyone even buy them? The same with the strawberries dipped in chocolate that look absolutely disgusting are another thing I see a lot. What delights do you see on your FB groups?

Anonmousse I agree with you - if people are buying them there is clearly demand. No one is being ripped off. I am just surprised there is the demand for some of these things.

I'm by no means a food snob, and applaud anyone wanting to set up a home bakery the responsible way, but these graze tables and boxes make me think campylobacter, E. coli, listeria, norovirus, salmonella. I've had good food from teashop owners turned lockdown home bakers, but I know their food won't send me to hospital because they know their germs!

Popsicake surely preferable lol

Yep, or lollycake / cakelolly. Anything but cakesickle!

If people are buying this stuff because they want to and not because they feel pressured into it to do something nice for a struggling friend or relative, fair enough. I'm just amazed that anybody could think this is good value for money or even a desirable thing to have, but then I'm a tightwad, and I'm also a good cook who enjoys cooking. Horses for courses.

Years ago on a local blog there was some discussion about the number of cafes suddenly opening up in our local area and how expensive the coffee was. The man who ran the blog worked in marketing and got quite irate on this point. He said (and it's taken me years to see he's right) that people are paying for the experience, not just the coffee itself

• for a reason to leave the house, the chance to sit in pleasant surroundings, in company with other people, drinking something you might not want or be able to make at home. For some people that's worth the money, for others it's not. I suppose it's the same here.

Oh don't. A friend of mine has just started doing these at home, with cold meats, sandwiches, crackers, cheese, scones etc. I pointed out she needs a hygiene certificate and she has one (because of work) but then she laughed and said 'hope I don't get inspected and they find the dog and rabbit in the kitchen!' (That's not to mention her four kids in there likely touching and sampling everything!).

The thing is I know full well she goes to Aldi and Lidl, buys the cheapest stuff possible then just opens it and arranges it prettily in a box and makes a few sandwiches to add. Now I shop in Aldi myself they do lots of lovely things, but she's buying the most basic things possible and doing 'luxury lunch platters'. Luxury they are not.

Worst of all she keeps messaging all of us whenever she knows there's a birthday coming up and asking if we'd like her to do us a box! Erm no thanks I'll stick to my M&S sandwich platters thanks!

@Catslovepies They look like freeze-dried bats!

I wonder if all the people who are complaining about things being made in a private kitchen hygiene-wise would buy stuff at a village WI cake sale!

@shinynewapple21

I wonder if all the people who are complaining about things being made in a private kitchen hygiene-wise would buy stuff at a village WI cake sale!

I wonder how many of them have even the most basic of food safety equipment in their own kitchens - the fridge thermometer

Anyone?

at the cheesy chips. Aside from anything else, I can get freshly cooked hot ones from the chip shop for about £5!

@LadyWhistledownsQuill

I wonder how many of them have even the most basic of food safety equipment in their own kitchens - the fridge thermometer

Yup, I do. We were also taught the rudiments of food hygiene (the levels at which to keep various items in a fridge, which parts of the fridge are coldest/warmest, how to handle raw meat etc.) at school.

@bombis

Anyone?

😂 At least it's proper thick cut chips

Anyone?

£15 for a handful of chips not hot enough to melt the cheese slice, and.... a spoonful of... coleslaw?! I can get two big fat hot delicious cooked from scratch Jamaican meals from my local takeaway for £15!

@oppositeofbubbly

Loads of chocolate/sweet 'bouquets' here (selection of multi-pack bars tied up with a bit of ribbon for ££££ more than it would have cost to but some nice chocolates).

There's also someone who started selling decorated bottles in the first lockdown. They started off looking quite nicely painted, then then there was a phase where they all just had NHS painted on them (seemingly by a toddler). Recently she has discovered some sort of light that fits in them. Initially they were decorated with a light inside, but now she just seems to be shoving a light inside (the labels are still). She's also asking for people to donate empty bottles. So basically now she's asking locals to give her a bottle and pay £10 for her to chuck in a light that's probably about £1 max on Amazon. Since she's still doing it I can only assume someone must be buying them!

Same on my local one too. Am glad to say I have never seen the sweets in grotty pizza boxes though!

OMG a Graze table 👀🤣😂🤢 horrific.

Some of these are high risk foods so they should have some form of HACCP in place.

We used to make the sweets and hot chocolate cones for the PTA stalls for £1 - really popular. But I always amazed people would buy them from home - just grab a couple of bags of sweets with the shopping.

@bombis

Anyone?

Are you supposed to melt the cheese yourself? Won't that heat the coleslaw? So many questions.

God this reminds me of my DP's ex (who I actually do get on with so not posting just to be bitchy haha).

She works in a cake shop and branched out selling cakes and cupcakes that she's made at home.

The cakes themselves look amazing to be fair, BUT, her kitchen is absolutely filthy, and you can see it (or at least some of it) in the photos she puts up to advertise her cakes. And people buy them!

I do actually socialise with her and we all get on well, but I would never eat anything she'd made in that kitchen - much less pay for it!

Surely it will all end up tasting of chorizo?

£15 for greasy chips and a cheese slice on top????

[quote sickofpainting]@EmbarrassingMama £15 for this bargain! [/quote]
I’m dying of laughter. Claims to be making this shit to sell and can’t even spell creamsicle.

A distant relative of mine has started doing this over lockdown. No experience of working in the food industry, she previously worked in an office. Must make an absolute fortune, charges £8 for 3 ‘brookies’. Heard that she made £500 gross profit over Mother’s Day weekend. Her stuff sells out within minutes.

Obviously I don’t know for sure, but I’m doubtful she has any food hygiene certs or pays any tax on what she makes.

@bombis

Anyone?

The cheese is drying and cracking around the edges!! 🤢🤢🤢🤢

@Scottishshopaholic

A distant relative of mine has started doing this over lockdown. No experience of working in the food industry, she previously worked in an office. Must make an absolute fortune, charges £8 for 3 ‘brookies’. Heard that she made £500 gross profit over Mother’s Day weekend. Her stuff sells out within minutes.

Obviously I don’t know for sure, but I’m doubtful she has any food hygiene certs or pays any tax on what she makes.

What's a brookie?