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?

Brookie- brownie/cookie.

I don't have particular issue hygiene wise with bakers tbh.

But meat and fish products there make me bit... Bluegh.
I simply don't believe that a homecook can cook in a small home kitchen 40 portions of different meat dishes without cross contamination, temperature issues and so on. It can be the cleanest kitchen, but if you let your wings sit on a counter for god knows how long before and after cooking because you need to do batches because you don't have equipment, while you are also throwing a beef roast into the oven, then portioning it, it gets risky. Domestic fridges also aren't made to act like commercial ones so opening them often, putting lots of warm food in to cool etc risks other stuff in the fridge.

And. Their bins must be full in few days😳 We have bi weekly collection, can't imagine I would be fitting in all the extra stuff.

Someone I used to work with is doing this on Facebook, and I definitely wouldn’t buy from her. She tried selling roast dinners, but someone told her she needed a hygiene certificate so she stopped. She now does sweet boxes, herbalife, fm perfumes and probably more that I’ve forgotten about. She even bought a dog during lockdown last year, and is now selling the puppies.

BlessedBeTheFruitCake how much is it?
I can't imagine grazing on a lump of brie.

I just had a look and someone is selling "food roats" near me.

I can't imagine grazing on a lump of brie.

mmmm I can and do
but not one with a 500% markup on it... that's been fingered, then left to go crusty in a box

@FizzyApricot

BlessedBeTheFruitCake how much is it? I can't imagine grazing on a lump of brie.

It’s advertised at £15.

@CaptainAwkward

I’m surprised that the company ‘Graze’ hasn’t cracked down on people marketing their shit boxes as ‘graze boxes’.

Mind you, there’s plenty of Chanel bog brushes etc on FB.

Because they didn't invent the word graze! It existed already, and it has the meaning that people are using.

You can't own the rights to a word that has been in common usage for eons.

@NameChangedForThisFeb21

I hate all this kind of thing.

For a start it’s encouraging a complete lack of portion control, total disregard for health and is likely to encourage binge eating.

A colleague started making up the “graze” type boxes or big glass bowls filled with loads of different sweets and chocolate just for her household for Christmas and Easter a few years ago. Then it got bigger, like the graze tables, set up on the living room table and corner tables. Then Christmas started happening in November and Easter was starting three weeks before, then the same for the month of October for Halloween. Now it’s all the time. Her, her husband and two adult kids just constantly spend their evenings and weekends dipping their hands into these giant fishbowls or pumpkins or bunny baskets filled with Poundland sweets like Haribo, Swizzles plus Lindor truffles,
M&Ms etc and they also have savoury bowls and get brownies and cupcakes made and delivered too. She’s constantly sending us all pictures of us asking if we are jealous, usually with an after shot of loads of empty wrappers and packets saying they’ve enjoyed themselves.

No. We all think you are greedy pigs with no self control and actually it’s nausea provoking to see. They’ve also got dogs, house rabbits and other pets who no doubt lick, sniff and paw everything they are eating.

Sounds like it's you who has the problem, not them.

@bombis

Anyone?

Looks revolting. Fifteen quid!!!!!!!! Christ.

I have a friend who sells homemade food on FB.. I've seen her kitchen and it's minging. I'm not a cleanfreak by any stretch but honestly there is crap all over the counter tops, crumbs everywhere, dirty floor and as for the hob.. boak. When she takes pictures of the food to upload you can never see the background mess so unless you've been there you wouldn't have a clue. I should add I have never ordered from her despite offering me mate's rates. She is lovely without a doubt.

There was a thread on here not so long ago about washing hands after using the toilet. All I can say is, it was an alarming eye opener. I can't trust any unfamiliar 'home cooks/bakers' anymore, food has to be prepped in a professional setting. There's some dirty fuckers out there!

@bombis

Anyone?

🤢.

I absolutely fucking despise these things. It was horrendous at Easter. Some woman I went to school with was trying to sell halves of Easter eggs filled with cheap chocolate spread. You could always see her dogs and young kids near the products in the background of all the pictures, no thanks.

@Overdueanamechange

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!

Where I live in Oxfordshire there’s definitely a demand for ‘home-cooked’ style Pakistani / Indian foods - towns are saturated with generic, curry houses that churn out the same bland dishes. The solution of course is to get either get hygiene certified by the council or open up your own proper eatery. But yes the demand is there.

There’s one local to me that do the sweet boxes, but they started it long before lockdown, always seem to be popular but really not worth the money for what you get. £7 for a small pizza box but reality is about £2 actual worth of sweets. But they deliver so am assuming the price covers the cost of this.
But since lockdown everyone seems to have jumped on the bandwagon. So our local pages were awash with the same thing. Most of them are overpriced crap!

Someone I know tried the sweets at Halloween, bulk bought a load of sweets and and bags to sell, It was collection only and her house was on the outskirts of town. She didn’t sell a thing as I’m assuming it would’ve been more convenient and cheaper to buy at the shops. She got stuck with a load of sweets that she couldn’t shift!

Also have a relative who does afternoon tea and cake boxes, (delivered free) Started this during lockdown.
She is a registered caterer and baker by trade so her kitchen is spotless She had to close the main business down during lockdown and started doing this to keep afloat. Everything is handmade from scratch and compared to others value for money. She has been so busy during lockdown.

If I was going to buy anything like this I would only buy from a legit business. No way am I going to buy from some random who decided on a whim that this was a quick money making scheme.

I’m on a couple of cookery groups on Facebook and the number of people on there who don’t know even the most basic of food safety is shocking, people happily eating meat left out all day in a warm kitchen or recently someone a chicken curry in the slow cooker to cool down overnight(would take hours to cool in the slow cooker) then left it sat out all day on the side and was asking if they could reheat it, the sauce looked like it was fizzing and people were like yeah it’s fine just put the slow cooker back on and eat it 🤢

I know someone who started to sell their home baking. They had had the rug pulled completely from under them thanks to the pandemic, brexit and lock down and the main earner losing a huge contract and their main source of income. I couldn't blame them for trying. Going from a very affluent lifestyle to trying desperately to make ends meet selling biscuits and cake is quite the fall. It didn't last long, after an initial flurry of sales (mostly friends and family) it dried up. Probably for the best as they hadn't the first clue about hygiene certs etc.

My DS is an engineer in the food production industry. He and his employer have to jump many hoops even pre COVID.
Staff discount shop useful though.
The last thing anyone needs is food poisoning when COVID is still around.