When are Tescos going to stop this bloody stupid 80 item limit?

[Bearbehind]

As delivery slots are like gold dust and there’s currently 3 households here who are trying to share a delivery for various reasons

80 items is simply not enough between us - especially as multipacks are often not available so you have to buy 1 tin of beans at a time for example, and means someone has to go out and do top up shops in between

Why are they doing this and when will it stop?

@ACertainSupermarket only slightly higher risk than your average healthy person but thank you for your expert medical advice. I can only assume you're existing on kale and bran flakes and that's making you tetchy. I'll also be sure to tell my consultant that I don't need my medication, as long as I cut out crisps and wine I'll be fine

I did my Tesco online shop yesterday and there was no "max items is 80" message so I assumed it's been lifted.

@grandmasterstitch I'm pretty sure she was only trying to help, no need to bite her head off!

I'm a picker at the moment - not for Tesco's - I can assure you that all the pickers I work with are trying get you your grass seeds,plant food,cork screws,hanging baskets,pasta bowls,weighing scales,ink cartridges etc but it is proving rather difficult as they don't tend to give us instructions as to the location on the handsets we use like it does for the rest of the shop. I know this sounds ridiculous but many of us have been thrown in at the deep end doing jobs we've never done before with no real training,we then also get timed and pulled up if we don't meet our items per minute/hour. I spent half an hour last week trying to find a particular cork screw for somebody as it wasn't with the other ones. My manager came and found me and I was then told I would be put under investigation.
Also newspapers are an issue at the moment as many people's shopping is picked before the newspaper delivery comes in.
I would love an online slot,I live with somebody very vulnerable and I am asthmatic. I'm finding I have to shop after I finish most shifts as if we need a trolley to shop and as staff we still have to go outside to get it and join the back of the queue. Many of us find this u fair but what can we do at this time 🤷🏼‍♀️ this isn't a moan it's just the new way of life we are all having to deal with at the moment so we are doing just that

I agree with the limit. It allows Tesco to support more customers during this period. As another poster said there are millions who are not on the vulnerable list but need shopping support due to other reasons.

Slots are prioritised for vulnerable people. If an ordinary slot is used to feed 4 households, that is really 4 slots and means there may not be enough slots for vulnerable people.

items it's maybe a measure to ensure everyone gets stuff or maybe they are just thinking about their staff who have to put orders together in an attempt to protect said workers who are, after all, working flat out to deliver goods to unappreciative customers who have never worked in a storeroom/warehouse or loaded delivery vehicles, or delivered anything in their lives. Or given a hoot about the dangers these workers face to their own health in serving you Joe public

Yet the alternative is for Joe public, some of whom are at higher risk than others, to go to the stores themselves to buy this stuff because they can’t get everything they need delivered

How exactly does that put the shop workers at less risk? 🤔

They got rid of plastic packaging for multipacks. Multipacks that are packaged in cardboard are still available, but those that were packaged in plastic are now single items only.

I don’t think that’s true - tins of beans for example - you can see them in a 4 pack wrapped in plastic n the website but once logged in, I can never order them

Is Tesco the only supermarket that delivers to you? Are all the three households you are shopping for shielding? If the answer to either question is no, then you're making it too hard for yourself by trying to work in a way that is at odds with how Tesco are dealing with the situation.

Yes, it would make sense for Tesco to deliver 120 items to you in one delivery but if Tesco have decided that they don't want to sell you more than 80 items at a time you have to go with that and either use another supermarket some of the time, or have someone shop in person.

Tesco have said that you should shop in person if you can, to preserve the delivery slots for the people who need them, as opposed to just preferring to have their shopping delivered, so while it doesn't make sense to you, you have little choice other than to comply.

The entire point of the limit is to help cope with selfish people like you.

This situation really is bringing out the worst in people isn’t it?

Why do you think it’s acceptable to call me selfish when you have absolutely no idea about the circumstances of the households I’m combining deliveries with.

There are very valid reasons why we are doing this - the selfish option would be to just look out for number 1.

If everyone who isn’t vulnerable just went to the bloody supermarket this problem wouldn’t exist.

Again, the slots aren't just for those who are vulnerable. The government have told us to get food delivered where possible

In a family of four adults, we've been getting a delivery once every three weeks and managing ok. We buy rice in bulk anyway, so we had plenty of that to start with, and we got a sack of flour off amazon, so bread/ cakes etc are sorted. We prioritise fruit, veg, cheese, milk (including a couple of uht for the end of the period), and topping up cleaning supplies. Tbf we have chickens for eggs and we're used to making sourdough, and we don't eat much meat so a big bag of e.g. chickpeas does a lot more meals than one packet of mince

Can you use another retailer or is Tesco the only one? Asda have started lifting a lot of their product restrictions over the last week or so. Only things I noticed with limitations were soap and beans. Also more availability of slots in our area too.

The government have told us to get food delivered where possible

The government has told us nothing of the sort. Buying food is one of the few reasons for which leaving the house is permissible. More MN making it up as it goes along.

I just want to add that aside from the limit I'v found Tesco to be very good still (I liked them before). All substitutions have been really sensible and haven't needed to reject anything.

@Alsohuman I think you will find Boris Johnston told everyone should try to get their grocery's delivered during one of his speeches .

@Floatyboat Thank you, I think @grandmasterstitch was giving as good as she got though .
A few points though:
I'm prepared to stand corrected, but didn't the government say people who are vulnerable should order online, but if you are healthy you should go to the shops to free up slots for those vulnerable?
And yes of course you can order anything we sell, from lube to liquid fertiliser. But don't whinge about there not being slots then argue that its fine for able-bodied drivers to order their 2x20 carling, 6 red wine and 3 pack of Pringles (yes, not using the rest of the 80 items!!)

@ACertainSupermarket I think that was the CEO of Asda or Sainsbury's that said that it wasn't the government .

He might have done @Peppafrig, it didn’t make its way into the guidelines though so it obviously wasn’t seen as particularly important or feasible.

@Alsohuman yes I'm remember Iceland coming out after it and saying not to follow his advice . But it's no wonder people are getting mixed messages if the Prime Minister addresses the nation and tells everyone to get their groceries delivered to their homes.

It’s frustrating, but I think Tesco have adapted pretty well and pretty swiftly TBH.

I’ve been able to be savvy with multi packs etc

RE the four packs of beans/toms/ tuna etc. I think just before this, they pledged to stop using the plastic wrap that keeps the tins together - they were selling them off to get rid in Feb, Early March.

What Boris Johnson says during speeches and what is in the Government guidelines doesn't necessarily match up.

Even in the 8.30 'address to the nation' which was obviously more scripted than the daily podium slots he managed to mess up the instructions about who could go to work.

If it's not written on the Covid-19 page on gov.uk, it's not 'government guidance' and is of variable relability.

I have just finished adding to my Tesco’s order and the 80 item limit is still in place for the pp who said it wasn’t?? Anyway I am now going to have to do an Iceland’s shop aswell as 80 items just isn’t enough for us and we always run out. I’m not going to the shop, not everyone drives or lives local to a shop, I have to walk 3 miles and back to my Tesco’s.

I know in my local store deliveries have massively increased. Pickers are picking 10s of thousands of items a day, demand is much much higher than ever before including Christmas, there are teams of 20 to 30 pickers working from small back rooms, picking on the shop floor from the early hours of the morning whilst other staff are stocking shelves and continuing into the afternoon whilst customers are shopping, all while trying to maintain the socially distant 2m apart, impossible really.

Whereas the local click and collect was run by one or two people, the slots have now doubled or more and are being run by a small team from a small hut in the car park, again hardly possible for them to be 2m apart all the time.

I suppose Tesco have decided to do more deliveries and their strategy is to limit items to allow this. It's not that the pickers are too lazy to pick a few more items or just hire more staff which would only mean more staff on the shop floor, less customers allowed in and make it harder to keep apart. I understand people are stressed, the staff are too but really everyone is just trying their best to deliver a service.