AIBU to think open bakery items in M&S are unhygienic?

[Guthealing]

Went to m and s on the way home - it was busy. I was absolutely shocked at the bakery area and then nearer the front of the store a table with unpackaged loaves of bread ?

As it was after school there were children there and I saw 2 touch some of the pastries , people were looking at them talking and breathing all over them and one woman coughed 🤮 the loaves of bread at the other side were being picked up and put down , a child was moving them about, how can this be hygienic??! Why is the bakery area not covered in some way? I usually go to Waitrose and their bakery items are in a cabinet at least. M and s isn’t cheap so why are they not more hygienic!!!!

And another one here. Not really bothered tbh. I love M&S bread.

Same. I do try and take from the back. I have never seen anyone touching
, moving or coughing over anything. Same with Lidl bakery…..I have never been killed by a brownie and I eat the often.

Exposure to germs is good for your immune system.

I wouldn't worry about it. People in France put baguettes on their roof racks. If you're worried, don't buy - it is simple.

I really cba to be bothered about this. Pre-packaged items will have had hands all over them at some point unless you're buying autoclaved tins or something.

Personally I rather less packaging.

Vowed not to use that kind of set up when I saw someone drop a roll on the floor and put is back with the other rolls.

It’s sustainability driven as well - less packaging means half the town’s shit-particled mitts have been on my fucking sourdough. I agree with OP and think it’s gross - my ritual is to take a loaf from the very back using the scanty bit of paper, and wallop it straight into a bag, before tutting theatrically at the £4.75 price.

I swerve the pastries entirely for the same reason (and the fact that they’re often desiccated by lunchtime).

Bring back packaging I reckon.

I really want an M and S baguette now, they are much nicer than other shops!

I often fancy an apple turnover but they’re just at sneeze level and uncovered at our local M&S. I always wonder why they do this. It would be so easy to just cover them.

Personally, I just buy bread, pastries and cakes from supermarkets/shops that keep them under cover.

It just means someone might have touched them. You'll only have an issue if they happen to have virus particles on their hands (or whatever else they could infect you with). The vast majority won't, some will.

And for the people who say they've always done it and been fine - I'm sure you'll have caught a cold or something at some point from something someone's touched. But yeah, it's unlikely there would ever be any real long term danger.

Not if you've an illness that makes you immunocompromised or are on chemotherapy!

If you'd ever worked in any kind of bakery, you'd know that any items are just as bad, if they've been handled by staff before being packaged.

A lot of supermarkets have unwrapped bread in UK. France is also help yourself in many places. Dry crisp/hard crusts are probably better for you than wrapped cheap (sliced) bread with the added immunity boost!

Staff will have been trained in food hygiene. Such places are inspected by local councils regularly to ensure they have procedures/policies in place for correct food handling procedures. They'll be provided with plastic gloves for food handling, hairnets, overalls, etc etc.

Completely different in a supermarket where all kinds of people will be touching, coughing and sneezing all over any uncovered items.

I went to Tesco the other day and saw their ‘rustic’ open bread loaves just shoved on a filthy plastic ‘reduced’ cage and loads of people picked it up moving it out the way to grab other items. I just don’t know how anyone can think that’s ok.

I was once in a supermarket with a pick and mix wall. There were a couple of children who had been told by their parents they weren't going to buy any. So the children licked their fingers, touched the fizzy sweets and licked them again. Several times. Their parents seemed to think that was ingenious. 🤮

Name one person who has ever got ill from an M&S pastry.

And lol at the ‘bakers’ wearing hairnets for hygiene reasons

Easy to say that, how the fuck would you know?

It’s one of those things where I wouldn’t have given a thought to before the pandemic, but wouldn’t buy now. I guess there were many years when I did buy open bakery food and suffered no ill effects but I always give more thought to that kind of thing nowadays.

my friend used to work for M&S bakery and the loaves being left out are probably the least of your worries

We lived for centuries with open sewers and no indoor plumbing, so let's all dump our chamber pots in the streets and see if Darwin was right.

There's no need to do that of course, because we can see for ourselves how many cholera, typhus, typhoid, and dysentery outbreaks there have been since we debuted clean running water, indoor toilets, and food safety standards. In particular, infant mortality has plummeted.

Absolutely vile. I am surprised places still have them after the pandemic. After seeing how many grotty people can't be arsed to wash their hands after using the loo, no way would I buy food from one.

M&S stuff is far nicer than most of the other stuff out there