To hate the lazy assholes that waste perfectly good food

[CrappyJob]

In the supermarket, because they can't be bothered to put it back in the right place?

I'm talking about items from the fridge left in the freezer or on a shelf and
Items from the freezer left on a shelf or in the fridge
Less often ambient items get left in the freezer, which also gets wasted.

I work in a supermarket, and we get several of these every day. Multiply that by every supermarket and it's probably enough food to feed a village if not more.

I don't even care if it goes back in the exact right place - just put frozen stuff in a freezer and chilled stuff in a fridge. I've even seen fridge stuff left in a freezer - when the fridge is literally the other side of the aisle, like two meters away.

It's such a pointless waste of perfectly good food. If you really can't be bothered to put it back yourself, hand it to a member of staff when you go to the till - it's part of one of the teams job to do things like this.

Basically I'm coming on to aibu to ask people not to do this. I didn't care if anyone thinks I'm unreasonable - I'm not!

If you hand frozen stuff over at the till doesn't it also have to be wasted? Because there's no knowing how long it's been out and if it's started defrosting?

You can't know how long anything has been out of the freezer in reality - someone could have picked something up, gone all around the shop with it doing their grocery shopping.. then spent half an hour catching up with someone they bumped into and haven't seen in ages, then spent an hour deciding on clothes, then go back and put something back in the freezer themselves.

Most people though, are in and out pretty quickly. And if they aren't, most items it's pretty easy to tell if it has been out too long. Those items should definitely get wasted (but I can't say for sure that every member of staff in every supermarket would do that).

This used to drive me fucking crazy when I worked in retail. Nightshift would find on average £100 worth of chilled food discarded on ambient shelves EVERY DAY. Or, chilled/ambient food chucked in the freezer.

We used to put stuff back if left at the tills though - prioritised chilled/frozen stuff going back immediately. Obviously not refunds etc.

*This used to drive me fucking crazy when I worked in retail"

I'm glad it's not just me!

And yes, fresh and frozen items go back straight away. Ambient ones might sit around for a while before someone collects them all up to put them back.

We had an issue at a till which delayed us and the assistant insisted she replace all our frozen foods because they'd been out

I would expect any frozen food that was not in its correct place or was handed in after potentially being in a trolley for some time to be wasted in case it had began to defrost and made someone ill

I used to work nights at Tesco as a student. I remember working a 10pm-6am shift on the 23rd December. It was carnage, clothing items left in the freezer, whole trolleys abandoned when people realised they weren't going to get their booze through the tills before 11 etc.

This used to piss me off at my previous work.
It should be:
Customers pick the items up,
Customers change their minds
Customers should put the items back themselves.

Usually it was things of the same range. Picked up a pizza in the fresh and walked to the frozen section and a pizza was cheaper there. Dumped fresh pizza in the frozen.

Also got clothes dumped in the biscuits, toys dumped in the bread (think that was parents refusing to pay for what their DC picked up).

Then one Sunday, once the store closed, I put the left behinds - security devices, stuff customers changed their minds, refunds etc back. Saw a massive trolley full of frozen stuff in the crisps. There were four of us and we put it all back.

Those who do this dumping everywhere, have never worked in retail

If it's not in the right place, it will absolutely be wasted.

If someone changes their mind, a judgement call would be made. As I said, for most items it's easy to know if it has been out of the freezer for too long.

We had customers who left their cards at home. We put fresh items in the chiller and frozen in a tote in the freezer. Sometimes its their own bags, we put shopping in them.

I handed in a nearly full basket of random found food in the wrong place ( chilled/frozen hot deli in the ambient stock) in Morrisons at till point expecting it to be written off , nope the till operator flashed the light pole thing and told the floor staff to put it all back in the proper place. No temp check no idea how long it had been sat on the shelves.
I complained at customer service who could not have cared less.
I don't shop there anymore.

Totally agree, some people are so lazy and ignorant. If I find things in ambient I'll put them back where they belong (only if they're still cold).

Customers should put things back in an appropriate place in this situation, but also supermarkets should employ sufficient staff to keep watch on the shelves and be able to find and remove things out of place quickly. I know, I know, an idle dream, since in actuality it can be nearly impossible to track down a member of staff.

There's no way we would put fresh and frozen stock from an abandoned trolley back for sale. Having said that, it wouldn't be the person on the till that would make that call - they would just tell the checkout support person that it's there, and they would be responsible for putting stuff where it needs to be - including the waste. Do you know for sure it all went back for sale, or are you just guessing based on the conversation?

It depends on the time of day as to how many staff are available.. in my store, early morning and in the evening, there are people stacking shelves, to tie in with when we get deliveries. In the middle of the day there are far fewer as there isn't the work to be done. It will vary from.store to store though.

Prices will be going up again soon, because of the impact of the national insurance changes and the increase in minimum wage. There will be enough complaining about that, without hiring staff just to watch what customers do.

Staff are leaving retail due to various factors - rudeness of customers is one of them. They are struggling to recruit as who wants to work with rude customers. Think the lack of training is not helping with keeping staff on. My colleagues who have been there for 35+ years told me of going to other stores in the area to train up and that was full time for a week, even though they had PT hours. Now new starters, get a roller of delivery by a manager and asked to put it out. Never once they mention to rotate the stock. Hence why we wasted so much time rotating it.

The rudeness of customers is one of the factors that made me leave. The bully store manager was my main reason - raising grievances (I was 10th member of staff to leave under his management) did not go anywhere. He was like that at his previous store. He should have been dismissed.

There is no reason except laziness with the exception of very very occasionally when something unexpected happens that you can’t put someone back properly or at least place the item in the fridge, freezer or ambient shelf depending upon what category what you are putting back is.

it would never ever occur to me to put a fridge item or a freezer item somewhere other than at the very least the corresponding area.

I worked in the rotisserie/oven dept and had once cooked a pack of 8 sausages, and put it out as a bag of two and a bag of six. The bag of six was taken, then a while later returned to me to waste, as someone has eaten two sausages out of it then left it on a shelf.

I mean, why not just take the bag of two and eat them as you go round?

I left that job in 2017 and I'm still annoyed about it

Not at all , silly comment .
Food safety rules will be adhered to. The op is discussing lazy customers who value their own entitlement over others .

When I first started my job at the supermarket, I was on the team that went to stores across the country and strip the shelves when the store was closed for 5-10 days for a total refurb. I found countless chicken bones that customers grabbed from the hot chicken counter over the years, ate around the store, then tossed somewhere. I bet 95% weren't paid for.

Then two days later, came back to fill the shelves firstly the ambient stuff then fresh and frozen. You just went to the marque that was erected next to the delivery yard and were given a roller of stuff to put out.

Now they do the partial refurbs when the store is open. Which is stupid as I got an asthma attack from the sawn MDF the contractors were using for the new kiosk and the backs of the bread section. Before anyone asks, my asthma was fine until I had covid twice. Plus the stores I did the above work in were much bigger and higher ceilings than my store.

I get you, OP.
Once someone dumped their remnants of a takeaway in a styrofoam box among chilled goods. 😳
When I change my mind and scurry back with fridge stuff from the other side of the store, I tend to get funny looks sometimes.
As if my husband, who is much older and of a large stature (we shop together) told me to put stuff back...😂

One of the supermarkets near me , took the soft plastics recycling incentive quite early , but had to stop because people were putty used nappies sanitary products and tied over condoms in it 🤢

Yes this used to hack me off too. Happens all the time and you're right it must cost a fortune.

I think the people who eat stuff around the store and then dump their cans/ milkshakes/ coffees around the store pissed me off more. Just thieves. And slobby ones who expected staff to pick up the crap they'd nicked.

The very worst ones in my book were the parents who gave their kids toys or magazines from the toy section to play with, which were then wrecked and discarded before getting to the tills. I mean what lesson does that teach kids.

Average food waste is apparently £60 a month. That'll be after they've bought it though.

When I was in retail due to Covid our biggest one was fresh fish dumped in the freezer as the frozen was cheaper and then garlic bread and pizza, both fresh but dumped in the freezer, for the same reason.

I mean at home I would just eat it anyway, but as you say, at work it had to be wasted. We lost loads that way. wouldnt have minded quite so much but this was a small shop, hardly a Wal-Mart sized place!