People need to think more outside the box with eating in hot weather

[Nickynicks]

Worked at a supermarket. When we had warm weather like we are forecast for the next week, the salad section- more so with lettuce, we ran out. Customers were moaning about no lettuce/bags of salad leaves. “You can’t have salad without lettuce”. You can! The dictionary definition of salad is a “dish mainly of cold and raw vegetables usually with hot and cold protein or carbs”. Where is the lettuce featured? Plus I had salad when eating out. On a few occasions, I had no lettuce. Various tomatoes, onions etc.

Then overhead people say “I’m sick of salads” by day 5 of the warm weather. Do people who live where hot summers are the norm, eat salads all the time? No! I know that their homes are better to deal with hot weather as our homes are designed to keep warm in the winter.

You can cook food. Ideally not in the oven or hob. But can cook in microwave or air fryer/multicooker (on options where lid is closed). Kitchen doesn’t get that hot that way

Or get some nice bread, cheeses, tomatoes, anti pasti.

Should see the abuse that customers give us when something is out of stock. It’s not acceptable.

If people stop being samey with their food, they will get more out of life. Budget is not an excuse as I had limited income and managed to do different meals each day

Currently eating a salad - cous cous, walnuts, bell peppers, spring onions. No lettuce!

Sounds like where the OP works doesn’t understand the basic dictum of “the customer is always right”.

If your customers want lettuce in their salads then that’s what you ensure you have well stocked up in hot weather. If your customers tend to only eat lots of salad in hot weather, again, you ensure you stock up accordingly.

Abuse is never acceptable, you’re right.
But if supermarkets know there’s going to be a run on lettuce, or strawberries, at particular times of year, why don’t they stock accordingly?
People eat what they like. I’m not a huge fan of lettuce so rarely eat it, and have some growing in a planter in the garden if I do fancy some (far nicer than supermarket stuff). Why should they ‘be imaginative’ just because you think they should be?

Most people purchase lettuce when the weather warms up because they think they ought to. Most people are sleepwalking through life.

This could be the beginning of the Great Lettuce Shortage of 2025, so have some empathy. What else can they pair with soggy, oversized tomatoes and salad cream?
Perhaps they think olives are woke?

Tapas and anti pasti are for the aspirational working class only. Not quite 'bougie candles',but close.

Absolutely, loads of salads do not have lettuce - even a perfectly trad and simple (and perfect for hot weather) Greek salad. However, I still want to have lettuce or some kind of salad-y greens in the house - I DO have salad of some kind almost every day in hot weather, and also use it for sandwiches, wraps, rolls, chilled soups, smoothies, and tacos. I grow my own, and forage, but also have some sympathy if customers feel a little inconvenienced if the shop has literally no lettuce of any kind.

Of course, they should not be abusing the staff, though!

i believe that supermarkets rely heavily on weather forecasts, sunshine, they get in the burgers

as regards abusive customers, it is not your shop is it, learn how to step back from the situation, learn de-escalation techniques. or just apologise..

@UltraProcessedLifeGoals
people are sleepwalking through life? thinking they ought to buy lettuce?
what sort of remark is that?
do you only buy lettuce because you really want to, not because you ought to?
perhaps they too like a lettuce

Another grower here. This is my first year of growing lettuce and managing to get the succession planting almost right.

Also home grown lettuce has been a revelation, much less 'wet' than shop bought lettuce.

I eat exactly the same food in summer as I do in winter, and I eat salad at both times of the year (not always lettuce however). What's so weird about that? Restaurants and cafes serve the same type of food all year around.

Not your particular flavour of humour I take it?

You take a comment seriously that calls olives woke and mentions bougie candles

i did take woke olives seriously
and ignored the bougie candles comment

I suggest we all go out and panic buy lettuce!

I noticed only 1 pack of romaine left in stock at Ocado this week

Lettuce pray we are not too late..

what about Liz Truss?

Don't worry, the internet has done a number on us all If we can't laugh we will cry

😂

I think you've misunderstood the relationship between shop and customer.

The shop offers goods. The customer chooses what s/he wants to buy or buys nothing if the shop doesn't offer what s/he wants. It's a good idea for the shop to offer goods the customer is likely to want, bearing in mind the season. Eg. in December getting in lots of Christmas stuff would be a good idea, in June the weather is likely to be warm so people will want to buy what they fancy in warm weather, eg salad, including lettuce. So, again, the shop would be wise to offer such things.

It's probably not hugely reasonable for customers to grumble rather than simply taking their custom elsewhere, but you could be grateful to them for letting you know what your customers want to buy if you want to keep their custom.

The idea is not that the shop stocks what it feels like and then decrees that customers should buy what the shop chooses to stock and complains when they don't.

I hate to break it to you. I live where it's hot 9 months of the year. And we, gasp, can't get lettuce sometimes.

Same with avocado's. They are seasonal though, so what do people do? Pay ridiculous amounts for an out of season one, or have something else.

And in those 9 months we just eat normal food. The options are limitless for what else can be eaten apart from salad

We eat burgers in the summer.
And curry.
And anything else that we fancy.

It's only weird to you.

I think many/most people have fixed ideas of what to have in warm/cold weather e.g. salads in summer and casseroles in winter - and it's hard to shake the habit.

I read that places like M&S pay weather consultants so they can place orders with their suppliers for increased prawn sandwiches which are the summer bestseller!

As someone who loves a salad, I find it odd how many people don't seem to understand that a good salad can be many things. I always offer to bring salads to BBQs, mostly because otherwise we'll be eating some iceberg lettuce with chopped tomato and cucumber only! But YABU nonetheless to have a moan about others - people eat what they like, know how to cook etc. Not everyone has learnt the art of a good salad, or appreciates it.

Same. We eat what we fancy, when we fancy. We spent years living in a hot country, and still ate things like curry and burgers when we wanted them.

If I eat out, I'm not ordering a salad as a main.

Because lettuce is the cheapest part of the meal and if it's a lettuce based salad, most of the bowl are filled lettuce leaves with way less of the exciting ingredients on the top.

I know! Imagine only have curry in 3 months of the year. 😂

Of course abuse isn’t acceptable. Although I wonder how much of it is genuine abuse, rather than people just complaining because an item is out of stock at a time when a supermarket should be able to anticipate high demand. Your employer’s failure to provide sufficient stock is not the customer’s fault.

I used to work in an office with an in-house cafe. The most popular item was jacket potatoes, but try to get one after 12.30 and you’d almost certainly be out of luck. I asked once, more in hope than anticipation, at 1 and was told “Ooh, no; they always sell out early. They’re really popular”. Apparently it never occurred to anyone to just buy more fucking potatoes.