To feel disheartened over customers dumping chilled foods on ambient shelves etc

[longlocks]

Most times I go to a supermarket, I see stuff which customers changed their minds and dump things in the wrong temperature section. Over the past week, I have seen:
. Cheesecake in the bread
. Ice cream in the cheese
. Chilled ready meals in the frozen

99.9% of this will have to be disposed off as too warm, too frozen etc

Customers should put stuff back themselves if they have changed their minds. They picked it up, they changed their minds, they should put it back.

A friend works at a supermarket. She worked out about £120 of stock is disposed per day as customers left the food in a different temperature section. Sometimes if could be for example, a pizza, found a better offer in the chilled section then leave the frozen one in its place. This is a medium sized supermarket.

I agree completely. It’s just laziness. If you change your mind, just walk a few steps back to where you got the item from.

This really bugs me because if they just took all the items to the till and then said oh I don’t want this then a colleague will return it to the proper shelf. Don’t just leave it anywhere as a surprise to be found hours later 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yanbu. I'm a customer and it pisses me off.

Also, the idiots who put chilled food in the food bank box despite endless signs telling them not to.

I worked in a supermarket years ago and would estimate the value thrown away daily at much higher than this. People are pigs. I even once found a hot chicken from the rotisserie counter in the freezer! Even if you don’t put it back on the right shelf, put it in the right section at least?!

It's just lazy and selfish they could just turn back and. Put it where it goes. Yesterday I saw some chicken sitting on top of cans,in aldi.

I agree is so wasteful and not to mention a total lack of respect to the people working in the shop.

Depends how long it’s potentially been out of the right temperature section. In a big shop, it could be too late to put eg. Ice cream back in the freezer if a customer says they don’t want it at the till.

I worked in a shop, it will never get put back and goes straight to the bin as per food safety guidelines.

That’s what I thought probably happens. Especially since if the policy was to put the item back in the freezer, it could potentially get picked and then rejected at the till multiple times by multiple customers before some poor sod bought it and ate it and ended up ill.

I’ve even seen tubs from the Morrisons salad bar, filled up by customers with their choices and then abandoned on the side/on shelves around the store.

Leaving those containers in a random spot is a shitty thing to do to the staff, but again, there’s no way the salad can be put back and sold once it’s been decanted into the container, especially if it’s self service.

Well no because then what is the difference between the customer walking round with it then putting it back in the right place - which people are saying they should do, rather than abandon it - and a member of staff doing the same?
By that logic the customer shouldn’t replace anything in case it’s been too long (they wouldn’t know) and many others have done the same before, or will after, them (they wouldn’t know)
I can only see this applying to frozen food that’s melted in which case it’s common sense.
Most of the time it’s a tin of beans in the bread aisle or something silly, like a loaf of bread left festering in the loo roll section, etc, in which case they could have just taken the item to the till with them and had someone restock it rather than just lob it on a random shelf.

The difference is that staff have to obey food safety guidelines. Don’t lug frozen stuff around the shop and then change your mind.

Ok but my original comment wasn’t only referring to frozen food and that seems to be what everyone is focusing on. I’m saying in most situations if fresh, produce or cupboard items it’s fine to just take it to the till to be restocked and it won’t automatically be thrown away like Pp have said. It’s lazy to just chuck it on the shelf when a staff member would reshelf it fine.

And yeah obviously food items that are not kept at room temperature (so frozen section, chilled section, anything sold hot like a roasted chicken) have different food safety guidelines to deodorant or fresh broccoli.

The OP is mostly focused on frozen/chilled/hot items though so it’s not surprising posters are also mostly focusing on that aspect.

Yes frozen obviously common sense dictates may be an exception but some chilled things are fine like a block of cheese won’t have gone bad.

Ha fair enough my bad I was just thinking from my perspective of working in a shop that there are many other types of food where this isn’t so much of an issue, but yeah I see your point

It’s so wasteful. I was raised by a grandparent that still lived like we were in rationing times and I do wonder how that generation would view this behaviour today. So unappreciative of what we have today.

Sorry but this thread has had me in stitches! Toilet rolls in the freezer, rotisserie chickens next to the cat food 😂

One of my biggest pet peeves. Yanbu. Lazy wasteful arseholes

I think there's a weird human phenomena of anonymity. It's like a brings out this dark side of people!

Hence, seemingly normal people doing things like leaving a great bit shit in a public toilet without flushing. Grown women leaving dirty sanitary pads on toilet floors in public loos. Meek and mild people being abusive online. Everyday people, putting a bag of cheese from the fridge aisle and then deciding they don't want it , so discarding it in the crisps aisle.

I think they get some little kick from it. A cheap, impulsive "naughty" thrill. If they were being watched, they'd never do it. It's the anonymity.

It must cost millions in lossless, not to mention the extra work for poorly paid staff.

If you abandon frozen food, I'd rather you abandoned it in the wrong area because then it is more likely to be disposed of, unless another customer picks it up and buys it, unlikely but possible.
Imagine a customer picks up a bag of frozen food, dumps it amongst the cleaning products because they don't want it. It sits there for an hour, slowly defrosting, then a well meaning customer picks it up and returns it to the correct space in the freezers, only for it to be bought by an unsuspecting shopper who then eats it and becomes very ill?
Not such a kind act now is it?
Especially if the unsuspecting person who bought it had a compromised immune system or was elderly.
I'd rather it was disposed of if it could in any way be harmful to health.

Better still, why don't shops have baskets at the end of every aisle where shoppers can put unwanted items, since you'll never get all customers to retrace their steps to return products to their original place, and staff could regularly check the baskets. That way, the shop would have a much better idea of how long the items had been abandoned for and whether they could still be sold.

Yeah saw salmon fillets with the bread recently. It's bullshit behaviour.

I did it once with DH years when kids were playing up in trolley I got overwhelmed a and stressed, plus I feared I’d gone over budget so pulled out about three of four items - maybe couple tins l, crisps and bananas- also some double cream I iifc and dumped the lot in the freezer as that’s where I was. He was mighty pissed off and rightly so. Went and put them back and met me at the tills. I felt like a right knob.

In Aldi there is always a stack of ready meals , fresh meat and fruit next to the cashier presumably waiting for another member of staff to put them back but staff so busy I can imagine they sit there a while.