AIBU to be fucked off with bagless deliveries?

[KillinMoon]

I live in a second floor flat, no lift. I can't drive due to epilepsy and can't lift heavy items due to adhesions from major gynae surgery. So I get my shopping delivered.

So far so good.

When the pandemic hit the drivers started leaving the shopping downstairs and waiting for me to collect it and take it upstairs. Ok-ish, when it was in bags, although a bit of a strain. Now that it's in crates it's really hard. I have to crouch/bend over the crates to fill up my own bags which is really painful. I understand they don't want to get the covid, but this is really hard for me to do.

This morning was a particular low point. Half my key stuff was soaked with rain - sugar, flour, tea, biscuits. The driver said to they'd had to load up in the rain. Obviously as they were doing it directly into crates everything got really wet. In the other tray, a bottle of milk had leaked and it had went everywhere. So on the veggies, salad, everything, it is just unusable.

I wiped the things I could (obviously this takes time) but other things I've had to just throw away : I can't do anything with solidified sugar in a disintegrating bag, or with clumped wet tea, or with salad and herbs etc covered in milk.

AIBU to think that this is all unnecessary effort for a service that after all I am paying for and to wish that supermarkets would rethink?

I spoke with Tesco this morning and told them all this and they will refund the damaged items but I still have to go out and buy them. They also said that they would pass my comments on but I doubt anything will change. I just feel a bit fucked off.

And for £7 a month you can get a smart pass and have as many deliveries as you want in that month.

It is ridiculous. I always forget as normally get ocado who use bags. When Asda or Sainsbury's turn up I end up with loose food all over the hallway floor. Ocado recycle their bags.

Could you take some bags downstairs and repack rather than carrying the crates upstairs? Would the driver not help?

Annoying about wet items though.

I don’t understand why they aren’t delivering to your door? I lived in a second floor flat for years and they always did?

I don’t know if anyones suggested this but do you have an Amazon prime subscription? There’s a service called Amazon Now on there where they’re partnered up with Morrisons, you can order your shopping same day or next day, they will bring it to your door (or at least they’re supposed to, my DP works for them flexibly) and it’s all bagged up in brown paper bags for you. Very convenient service for Prime members, I’ve used them many times, they’re my go to along with Iceland as they’re the only other ones who’ll bring it to my apartment door.

@HelloPanda12 sadly it's not available everywhere. I live in a large city surrounded by Morrison's stores (and major Amazon warehouses- not sure if that's a relevant) and for some reason can't get this.

@LeSquigh it's because of the covid. They don't have to come into apartment blocks now.

@HelloPanda12 I can't afford that for everyday groceries.

I'm going Ocado now. Thanks all. 👍

@HelloPanda12

I don’t know if anyones suggested this but do you have an Amazon prime subscription? There’s a service called Amazon Now on there where they’re partnered up with Morrisons, you can order your shopping same day or next day, they will bring it to your door (or at least they’re supposed to, my DP works for them flexibly) and it’s all bagged up in brown paper bags for you. Very convenient service for Prime members, I’ve used them many times, they’re my go to along with Iceland as they’re the only other ones who’ll bring it to my apartment door.

I was going to say this - free delivery if you spend over £40 too. Love my Amazon prime food shop - only me, so I use it for stocking up on tins, household cleaners etc every few weeks - and then get a veg box for fresh.

I note that Tesco are now beginning to phase out bags for loose vegetables in their stores - you have to take your own or buy the re-usable ones at 30p each... Of course, this will force a lot of people to buy the ones already weighed and bagged in plastic bags.

If you send me a pm, I can give you a code that will give you a free gift with your first order worth £25

I would search online first, @KillinMoon, Ocado usually have a 30% off or some other offer for your first order offer for new customers, which is more useful than the "refer a friend" hamper.

@VickyEadieofThigh Sainsbury's have been doing this for a while, it's such a rip off, billed as being all frigging thunberg friendly but it's just another way to get money off you. You even have to wash the bag yourself once you get home! Ffs any fucker can be green if they get other people to do the legwork and shoulder the cost. Fuckers.

I moved to Ocado for exactly this reason. I hate bagless shopping deliveries.

Couple of practical suggestions.

If you want to stick with tesco you can join delivery saver using your clubcard points, it saves money on deliveries and you can get them more often for less money. I get two smaller deliveries a week and less to carry as long as they are at least £40.

Hand back to the driver anything that is damaged and they will refund. 2 deliveries a week also means you get a replacement sooner if you can wait 3-4 days.

Our delivery guys are brilliant, they will put the trays on top of each other to give the height to lift stuff out easily, can you ask them to do that?. I decant them into two washing baskets in my hallway so it is quick.

Could you use a wheeled shopping trolley for stairs so you can bump up the stairs and you can rest/not have to carry the full weight of the shopping?

I miss the convienence of plastic bags, but they really do need to stop being used and other solutions looked at.

Thanks but I don't want my shopping to be hard work. I'm already having to go out and buy stuff I've paid for this week albeit that it will be refunded eventually, and that's on top of a background of low level cock ups, faff and inconvenience that's been going on for months. I'm not prepared any longer to adjust my habits to accommodate a company I'm paying money to to deliver food I've paid for.

I thought they still gave you options for bags or liner deliveries? I will have to look.

I use my shopping trolley with wheels to bring the shopping from the door to kitchen. Also a laundry basket since sometimes I have bigger shopping deliveries.

@Raindancer411 they absolutely do not.

@Cratos I'll be using a shopping trolley just as soon as Tesco buys and carries one for me.

@Raindancer411

I thought they still gave you options for bags or liner deliveries? I will have to look.

No they don’t

I hear you op, I've stopped having home deliveries now because of the no bags system. I just can't do it.
There's no leeway for being disabled either. You're expected to pick your shopping up from the trays they put on the floor regardless.

They could use paper shipping bags
And for fruit and veg. Like olden days.
I can see the net bags becoming a future problem.

@KissedintheDark

I hear you op, I've stopped having home deliveries now because of the no bags system. I just can't do it. There's no leeway for being disabled either. You're expected to pick your shopping up from the trays they put on the floor regardless.

Not Ocado- they put the bags on the work surface in the kitchen if that’s where you want them to put them. Their first question is either “where do you want your groceries?” Or “do you have any bags for return?”

@Rummikub

It’s all a con. It’s just cheaper for them.

This is 100% spot on. And OP, you’re absolutely right that it’s easy to “be green” when it just involves forcing the work onto someone else. Denote these shops have no “environmentally friendly” provision for disabled customers (some kind of bags??? Letting you keep the crate and return it? I know some people have said theirs allows this but many don’t. Giving you disposable crates even?) because all of those would cost money and they’ve settled on absolutely the cheapest “environmental” option. They’re saving TONS using those plastic crates and no bags; in cost of bags, in getting rid of order-assembling employees and forcing less employees to the work more quickly. But if environmental friendliness cost them a pound more, they wouldn’t do it (as indicated by how much plastic is still INSIDE your grocery order and all over their food packaging), and if helping the disabled cost pence more, they won’t do that either. I’m getting all het up But it really does make your life so much more difficult and separate you from non-disabled people when, thanks to a large corporation’s cost-cutting measures, you lose the independence of even being able to order your own bloody groceries. It wears at your self-esteem a bit.

Try Ocado again. They say on their website "We're using bags again", That's why I stopped using Tesco. Ocado buy the bags back, too!

Shows how long it's been since I used them last then 😂 Asda or Sainsbury's for us...

@5YearsLeft absolutely! Easy enough for tesco to "save the planet" on my dime. Bit harder for them to do so if it cost them anything. And ofc anyone with a disability is always the first out the boat.