To think it’s morally wrong to buy yellow stickered items if I’m not on a tight budget?

[FlatpackHater]

Just to be clear I don’t necessarily think it’s morally wrong but AIBU polls don’t really work on uncertainty do they?

Basically I feel morally conflicted about buying discounted food in the supermarkets, particularly now during the cost of living crisis.

I’m not on a tight budget, but I do LOVE a good bargain. Few things beat the thrill of finding profiterole stack reduced to 25p.

But should I be thinking about people who might be depending on picking up such bargains just to make their food budget stretch.

I often shop in Waitrose and frankly think that most people who shop in Waitrose aren’t on the breadline. But I shop in Lidl as well and feel maybe I should be leaving the Lidl bargains for someone else.

Or should I just crack on, enjoy my bargains and focus on the fact I’m reducing food waste?

YANBU - leave the yellow stickers for those who need them

YABU - enjoy the bargains

I don't think it's wrong as long as you don't take every single YS item, that I do feel is selfish. Depends on what it is too, of course.

Everyone should be attempting to reduce food waste and waste in general, to me it's the same as buying second hand. Of course it's for everyone.

Just wanted to say that I think it's lovely that you spent time thinking about this and how your choices might affect others, it shows kindness and thoughtfulness🙂

I voted YANBU as you're thinking of others less fortunate than yourself. Many wouldn't think like that.
I would buy these items anyway as they're only going to be disposed of if not sold.

The profiteroles for 25p would have found a taker but if you see 8 packs of liver, over 30 packs of salad and bags of brown bananas you are saving the food from the bin.
buy it and eat it.

Yellow stickers have nothing to do with helping people find a bargain. Instead they exist to shift short-dated items and reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away.

If you're concerned about people who are struggling to put food on the table, chuck some tins in the food bank donation crate.

The food banks round about us usually have a fairly good idea about what their clients need at that particular time... they usually have a sign up asking for particular items which you can then pick up in store. So I wouldn't feel bad buying a yellow sticker item if I wanted it as I do see it mostly as being about reducing food waste rather than anything else and there's no guarantee items would get to those who are struggling rather than being wasted. I do think loading half the items into your trolley while you block everyone else is a bit much though!

No one really needs a profiterole stack, and the reductions in Waitrose are so pitiful they’re barely worth the yellow sticker so no one’s missing out on a bargain there.

Waitrose is bizarre - even in the same branch, some days there'll be a minimal reduction ten minutes before they close, others 90/75% reductions - and some evenings they just load you with free stuff on your way out of the door.

And of course there are days whne I absolutely do NEED a profiterole stack😃

If you’re really feeling bad about it perhaps you could just taking the profiteroles and leave stuff like meat and veg?

I think its mad that we have food poverty and we have food waste. With all this communication technology . It’s bizarre that we over mass produce fresh produce and slaughter animals for it to be waste and past best and thrown so yes do buy yellow sticker items but don’t block others from doing so and yes u can spot who is in need in certain situations. In M&S at a Kew retail park a man parked his trolley in front of the reductions and just loaded it up when a pensioner piped up that it would be nice if everyone had a chance and he carried on ignored her and even with bringing in a member of the M&S staff who was feeble about it. So obviously that person is the one who should be feeling guilty and blocking , Hogging the reduced section is wrong and its not a case of who parks and blocks this section. I have left stuff or passed something to others even a member of staff but actually I have noticed the reductions have changed its now reduced by a very tiny amount to look like its a significant reduction by being in the next number down. The items already have much shorter shelf lives since during the pandemic so buying reduced by pennies and at times its already past its best.
I think buying reductions is good housekeeping and hopefully awareness of food waste so keep it going OP but only if your going to eat it obvs just think its been harvested, sealed in plastic , transported and stacked on a shelf it would be sad to bin it after all that.

I feel exactly the same and worried about it.

I would never buy from Lidl if reduced- there are people praying for that stuff. I also tend to leave essentials and treats like profiterole. The news is full of people who are having to scour the shelves for yellow stickers. Anybody who says no is living in la lala land

I feel no guilt in picking up M&S / Waitrose indulgences. For example, one of them has a new fresh food range, that works at £7 per person for a salad dinner item. On yellow sticker it comes down to £4.50. Nobody on a budget will buy this as it isn't substantial at all ( but delish)
I live for this !

If veg/ meat is substantially reduced, or even profiteroles, I leave them for the next person. I can afford to buy them full price and have the choice of a longer date.

It is immoral to stock up the freezer with the lot

I think it is good to think

I always have a nosey at the YS section but in our local supermarket, its almost always ready meals reduced down, very, very rare to see meat, veg etc. It can also get quite competitive when new items are being added, people tend to swarm and barge past to get to the section. We are on a tight budget, but I am not going to jostle/fight with people to save a few pennies on something I might not have bought anyway. Olio is really good though, I have used Too good to go a few times as well.

I did get some mince from Aldi once reduced from £4.19 to £2.09, was very pleased with that as I was buying it anyway.

I'm part of a community food club where you pay a few pound and get to go and get lots of surplus supermarket food that would otherwise be binned. I could afford not to but I love going.

Huge amounts of yellow stickered food still ends up in the bin.

Leaving it on the off chance a poorer person than you happens to come by is crazy logic - you have no way of knowing if the next person along is richer than you, or if no one will want it and goes in the bin.

If you want to help poor people, do something that will actually definitely help them! (I.e. donate money that will go directly to help struggling people). Don't just pass on yellow stickers and pretend you've done something virtuous.

Huge amounts of yellow stickered food still ends up in the bin

I think that depends on which supermarket you shop at TBH.

the women i saw getting the bargains, strawberries for 10p for example,
were just grabbing everything indiscriminately
when i used to pick dd up @ 8.00 there was every time a man, like me, looking through the reduced items
go for it

I have been that person hoovering up 6 or 8 punnets of strawberries reduced to pennies.

Made great jam.

No problem with that is there. Not like people will come in 5 minutes later and go oh no reduced strawberries.

One time I went into Sainsburys to get in gluten free bread as my daughter who is coeliac. Gluten free food tends to be more expensive.

There was a shelf of gf bread heavily reduced, 5 loaves and just as j was going to pick up one of the bargain breads , a woman moved in front of me and started to shove the whole lot into her trolley. She could easily see I wanted gf as it was s separate section and she knew I was heading for a. bread before she swooped in.

Luckily there was an Assistant next to us who had began doing the yellow tickets and j said excuse me is there any more gluten free bread left outside? She looked up and began to say yes I’ve just marked it down, but saw the woman had put them all in her trolley.

The person who’d taken all 5 loaves heard looked a bit sheepish and put one back.
I don’t think the Assistant could have done anything if she hadn’t.

i always take one or two if there’s a few incase anyone else needs it, although I Wouid maybe take all of them if it’s literally closing time.

I don’t think you’re unreasonable to consider this but I also think it’s ok to take them, but be sensitive about it. I am not poverty-stricken, I have an above average income but I’m a careful shopper and look out for bargains. If it’s yellow stickered and I want it, I’ll take it if it’s nearer the end of the day, something that will definitely get used immediately in my house, if it’s been flown a long way (I normally try to avoid food miles but I feel awful about something like green beans getting wasted after flying from Kenya) and/or if there are plenty left. Or as a PP said if it’s something that’s expensive anyway, I won’t be depriving anyone who’s desperate, it’s just reducing waste.

however if I saw someone who seemed like they wanted it more I’d leave it, and I don’t go to the actual bargain area as I do think that’s where you’d go if you were on a very tight budget.

Correct, and Magic Bags via the app works on the same principle. They are NOT meant solely for those financially hard up as these things are literally pot luck. So are inappropriate for helping those with financial hardships.

Reducing food waste is the point. That's why supermarket staff can also take yellow stickered food that didn't sell home for free after 9pm with Tesco.

OP is very logically not being unreasonable in the slightest and the poll indicates a lot of people have misunderstood the point of reduced item foods.

No, I didn;t think so either. But lots of people on this thread think I should have taken just one punnet, or left the lot in case a "poor person" came along after me.

Bonkers.

I mean if there are other people there at the same time it might be polite to say does anyone mind if I take all these strawberries. But I don't think any one would care.

I often think the reductions aren't enough to make it worthwhile. I look though and would buy anything I'd usually buy and that can go in the freezer.

The "system" is to avoid waste, not to help poor people

I don't know if you'd consider it but I used to do an olio collection and we'd get a lot of gluten free bread. Like a green tesco crate or two every collection. It was really hard to give away as most people don't like gluten free bread (majority of it went to chickens or pigs in all honesty). Have a look at the app in your area you could collect a bunch then freeze.

I think it depends also on when you visit. My local Tesco is rubbish - they initially knock off about 10% which really isn't worth it. Asda on the other hand seems to mark everything half price initially. The best is the Co-Op - on a thursday I have to take DS to drama and pass a smaller Co-op about 6.45-7pm and always pop in to grab something, they often have dramatically reduced fish/meat/bakery, up to 75% or more off.

But the VERY best bargain I have ever had was at the start of the pandemic when we were all staying at home and not doing anything fun, the local Asda had reduced all their party cakes to 10% of the original selling price. Massive llama cake thing for a quid. Kids were delighted.