Customers who mess up shelves of food

[notedbiscuits]

They grab strawberries from the bottom layer - all strawberries have the same date and leave them in a mess. This can cause packs to be damaged or bruise the fruit.

See them grab tins which have 2-6 years shelf life from the back again making a mess.

Please be more careful when taking stuff off the shelves. The staff have got better things to do than straighten the displays

Doesn't matter in Tesco. Their fruit and veg goes off before they sell by date anyway.

On the other hand, I was dithering about looking at dates recently, just as an employee brought out a fresh load of bread to stack, and he actually asked me if I’d like one of the newer loaves!

If I knew that the stuff (fresh produce,not canned stuff) was going to have a decent length of 'use by' date on it,I WOULD take it from the front. But why should I take something that has 'use by' tomorrow on it,when there are packets with a week on further back?

I always take perishables from the back because of the longer date and also because I don't trust the staff to not have put discarded stuff that has been out of the fridge or freezer back there.
The thing that annoys me more is shoppers discarding refrigerated or frozen items randomly in aisles. Absolutely lazy and disgusting behaviour in my opinion. And while I'm on my soap box why do people leave frozen stuff they don't want in a random fridge or refrigerated stuff they don't want in a freezer. Put it fucking back in the right place. GRR!

Waitrose …. It isn’t wasted, it will be collected by a local charity (via Fareshare) after the store has closed.
All products should be re-reduced (the first reduction is from the day before) but basically there isn’t enough staff to do it the second time, whoever is working that section is probably doing the reductions for the next day….believe me we want to re-reduce it but just don’t have the time to.
We honestly don’t care if you take from the back or mess the shelves up…..we’ll tidy up after you if we have time, but mostly don’t have the time to. The only thing that really does bother us (me) is when some fresh (from chiller) is just dumped in the ambient section and we have to throw it away …. seen legs of lamb just left by the breakfast cereal for example, now that’s really annoying.

I do just take form the front if I’m going to use it. I won’t rifle through to get an extra few days on fruit if I’m going to eat it today or tomorrow anyway.
Things like yoghurt if I’m buying a 6 pack I want at least a week’s date on it.
I don’t like food waste including the supermarkets throwing it out.

Supermarkets like customers who come in with blinkers - grab the first thing, have the same food each day of the week - Monday sausages, Tuesday pork chops.

Plus with more people buying things daily - which overall costs them more money, then if they bought something to use n eat that night- doesn’t it matter if it’s got the next day’s on?

sorry but I am dyspraxic with severe peripheral neuropathy. Nothing I can do about making a mess. And yes I am going to rummage around for the longest dated product. i am paying for it, why wouldn't I

As there are no dates on the veg bags where I shop, if you take from the top tray you're very likely to get older, often rotten stuff. I always seem to get rotten carrots no matter how carefully I check, unless I take from the new in tray beneath. So I'm going to keep doing that thanks.

I don't understand why pp want longer dates on stuff at the front? What do you think will happen to the stuff with short dates? Oh wait I know, it will either get wasted= increased prices or will get missed when dates are checked = increased prices and pissed off staff and customers.
It's clear not many folk know anything about working in shops. If only it was as simple as putting shit on a shelf. Actually laughing that you all think that's all we have to do.

I don't make a mess but I certainly will not be starting taking produce from the front...it almost never the "exact same date". I'm going for the latest date and freshest food I can find and it's unreasonable to suggest we don't. I examine fresh food carefully to make sure it's the best quality I can find before I buy it...

That's just normal behaviour!

You could ask a shop worker to get them for you rather than knowingly spoiling stock you're not going to purchase.

When I shop, I shop for the whole week, therefore I have to go through the produce and ‘shop from the back.’ It angers me that so much in supermarkets is so short-dated.

Get this with bread at work.

Customer gets a loaf at the back and crushing bread as doing this.

”All that line has the same date”
”How do you know?”
”Shelf was empty and filled 5 trays”

Which is 50 or 60 loaves depending on brand as some have 10 loaves per tray and some have 12.

Exactly this.
Having worked in a small supermarket I know how stock rotation works.
While we're on this, can supermarkets stop rearranging everything to make us buy more when we're looking for the thing we actually want.

Someone tried to tell me off in Tesco for doing this, saying 'it's all the same', in a grumpy voice, when it most definitely was not all the same.

I take from the front if I am using it soon. If I need it to last, I go further back.

I might look at the yellow sticker section for something for that evening.

I never throw food away.

In our area some shops allow the community pantry folk to collect it and folk can go to the pantry at certain times to collect.

Hoping your guinea pig doesn't live alone....

My bugbear is customers who pick something up, change their mind and can’t be bothered to put the item back where it came from. If it’s chilled and ends up with the biscuits or tins, it’s wasted unnecessarily.

@Bluevelvetsofa especially if it's meat. An animal died. Have enough respect to eat it or else put it back.

I take from the back of the shelf if I need to. No way I'm getting through 2L of milk or a loaf of bread by tomorrow and I'm not throwing food away. I leave shelves tidy. Fruit gets sniffed or gently squeezed. Sometimes the sooner date is better because it's riper. Don't leave a mess and don't feel guilty.

If I'm paying £3 for a loaf of gluten free bread I'm buying the one with the longest date. No way am I paying £3 for one that expires the following day or looks like it's been squeezed to death so will fall apart when you open the packet. Where I live there are idiots who squeeze bread to check how fresh it is.

Well, I sometimes do because I hate waste. So if I know we can eat it in time or it can be frozen, yes, I'll take the shorter dated product because if no-one does, it'll be chucked.

Veteran of 3 years in food retail as a student. Spent most of that time doing replenishment of the refrigerated section. I was good at it and was promoted to floor supervisor. My team closed the store 3 nights of the week so were responsible for removing out of date food.

So even now 20years later I almost always take from the back for fresh food. Tins etc. I never bother.

I have been known to tidy a display where it’s been stocked badly with short date stuff at the back. Particularly when in my former employers stores!!

Also I usually track down the floor supervisor if I find discrepancies on price tags (ie I get charged more at the till than it said) and I tend to draw out of date food still on display to staff attention due to the legal consequences for the store of this stuff still being on display.

The evening supervisor in my local branch and I often joke about my obsessive-ness around this. She knows I used to do her job as I felt I had to explain…

@Auburngal It really is bad form to post on your thread with your second account making it look as if you are adding weight to your original moan

I agree it's annoying when bread gets squeezed, and items get left in a disarray.

Sniffing fruit, WTF?