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Supermarket Update

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Mcr Warrior

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Birds Eye (frozen) garden peas are usually of a consistently better than average quality, IMHO.

A tad pricey though, if not on special offer.
 
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deltic

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Presumably as frozen food is less perishable its not a priority for deliveries or is it a case vegetables are not being harvested due to shortage of workers?
 

Baxenden Bank

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Presumably as frozen food is less perishable its not a priority for deliveries or is it a case vegetables are not being harvested due to shortage of workers?
I did wonder.

There have been articles in the media today, with quotes from Tesco (don't panic Mr Mainwaring) and Iceland (och we're all doomed) regarding Christmas stocks - for which the build up has (or should have) now started. But the ones I read were remarkably lacking in detail such as whether the problems are in the breeding/growing stage, culling/harvesting, processing, producer to warehouse delivery, warehouse to store delivery, or stocking of shelves.

In the absence of detail I dismissed it merely as press releases designed to generate headlines for which the rushed/lazy journalist is eternally grateful. I do like some analysis behind the headlines. I think the Tesco person spoke of 30 to 40 deliveries per day being missed, compared to how many thousand would they have in a normal day?
 

daodao

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Yes of course however we always wrote Altrincham, Cheshire
I still do; it is the official way to write local addresses. I also recommend the particular supermarket branch mentioned by Xenophon (Booths in Hale Barns). It has been particularly pleasant to shop there during the Covid crisis as it is airy/spacious (with wide aisles) and not too crowded; a personal plus point is that it is directly en route home when I work in Macclesfield.
 

Bantamzen

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I did wonder.

There have been articles in the media today, with quotes from Tesco (don't panic Mr Mainwaring) and Iceland (och we're all doomed) regarding Christmas stocks - for which the build up has (or should have) now started. But the ones I read were remarkably lacking in detail such as whether the problems are in the breeding/growing stage, culling/harvesting, processing, producer to warehouse delivery, warehouse to store delivery, or stocking of shelves.

In the absence of detail I dismissed it merely as press releases designed to generate headlines for which the rushed/lazy journalist is eternally grateful. I do like some analysis behind the headlines. I think the Tesco person spoke of 30 to 40 deliveries per day being missed, compared to how many thousand would they have in a normal day?
The problems probably exist at all those levels. Crop production is pretty time critical in many cases, so any disruption to harvesting can have pretty serious knock-on effects. The same is true of logistics, moving the crops from farm to factory, processing & and then from there to supermarket. With the nonsense that was the "pingdemic", a lot of workers found themselves asked / forced to isolate meaning that some disruption was inevitable. And many companies in these time critical chains observe continuing clamour from some quarters for more restrictions, more testing, more isolations as we roll towards Autumn & Winter. In all honesty all they are saying is that if we fall back towards where we were last year, all the pressure exerted on the food chain thus far will be magnified further with more restrictions.
 

DelayRepay

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One thing I've noticed - and this is in several supermarkets - is that fresh food doesn't seem to have as long a shelf life as it used to. Everything seems to have a best before/use by date in the next couple of days. Before all this chaos I am sure items had a longer shelf life.

I guess it's probably related to the supply chain issues - goods taking longer to get to the shop and therefore having a shorter shelf life when they arrive.

Lots of gaps in Tesco last night but some of them were odd things - a lack of jars of jam for example. Not sure why that's been affected, it doesn't seem like something people would panic buy. I guess it must have been left off the lorry to make space for something else.
 

Bantamzen

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One thing I've noticed - and this is in several supermarkets - is that fresh food doesn't seem to have as long a shelf life as it used to. Everything seems to have a best before/use by date in the next couple of days. Before all this chaos I am sure items had a longer shelf life.

I guess it's probably related to the supply chain issues - goods taking longer to get to the shop and therefore having a shorter shelf life when they arrive.

Lots of gaps in Tesco last night but some of them were odd things - a lack of jars of jam for example. Not sure why that's been affected, it doesn't seem like something people would panic buy. I guess it must have been left off the lorry to make space for something else.
There definitely has been a downturn in both shelf life and quality of fresh food recently, especially with things like salad vegetables. This probably is an effect of disruption to chains, but I'm sorry to say also down to a certain political decision made a few years ago. This isn't the place to go into depth with that, but it is for sure having an impact.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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If less exotic fruit and vegetables, transported great distances, are offered, that could be a 'positive' result of b****t. They could be more expensive too.

The UK can produce plenty of tasty vegetables, sprouts for example.
 

Bantamzen

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If less exotic fruit and vegetables, transported great distances, are offered, that could be a 'positive' result of b****t. They could be more expensive too.

The UK can produce plenty of tasty vegetables, sprouts for example.
Not all year round, we still rely on a significant amount of imported food, particularly from the EU.
 

Hadders

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One thing I've noticed - and this is in several supermarkets - is that fresh food doesn't seem to have as long a shelf life as it used to. Everything seems to have a best before/use by date in the next couple of days. Before all this chaos I am sure items had a longer shelf life.

I guess it's probably related to the supply chain issues - goods taking longer to get to the shop and therefore having a shorter shelf life when they arrive.

Lots of gaps in Tesco last night but some of them were odd things - a lack of jars of jam for example. Not sure why that's been affected, it doesn't seem like something people would panic buy. I guess it must have been left off the lorry to make space for something else.
Delays caused by staff shortages (Brexit and Covid)
Delays at ports (Brexit and Covid)

Sales in many supermarkets are still above forecast which on the surface sounds good. At this time of year you would expect a significant portion of customers to be out of the country on holiday but travel restrictions has largely put a stop to this. Supermarkets are limited in the volume they can deliver to shops because of depot capacity (e.g. number of vehicles can be unloaded/loaded at a time, amount of order picking equipment, number of lorries and that's before you get to the staff to operate them). The same issues happen all the way through the supply chain.

Where volume is constrained the decision will generally be made to cease supplying slower selling products and switch as much production as possible into faster moving items.

There definitely has been a downturn in both shelf life and quality of fresh food recently, especially with things like salad vegetables. This probably is an effect of disruption to chains, but I'm sorry to say also down to a certain political decision made a few years ago. This isn't the place to go into depth with that, but it is for sure having an impact.
Absolutely agreed. And it's far worse in Northern Ireland.

If less exotic fruit and vegetables, transported great distances, are offered, that could be a 'positive' result of b****t. They could be more expensive too.

The UK can produce plenty of tasty vegetables, sprouts for example.
You might be happy to east sprouts but British tastes have moved on.
 

VauxhallandI

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I still do; it is the official way to write local addresses. I also recommend the particular supermarket branch mentioned by Xenophon (Booths in Hale Barns). It has been particularly pleasant to shop there during the Covid crisis as it is airy/spacious (with wide aisles) and not too crowded; a personal plus point is that it is directly en route home when I work in Macclesfield.
You had to ruin it all by mentioning the M word 8-)
 

VauxhallandI

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You live and learn on this website. My very basic culinary food preparation knowledge tells me of different methods of cooking sprouts, but I suppose it will only be a chef at his highest pinnacle who knows how to "east" spouts.
I think you dip them in mud first.. or is that sprout-au-vin
 

deltic

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One thing I've noticed - and this is in several supermarkets - is that fresh food doesn't seem to have as long a shelf life as it used to. Everything seems to have a best before/use by date in the next couple of days. Before all this chaos I am sure items had a longer shelf life.

I have noticed that too, makes the weekly shop far more difficult
 

SteveM70

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Where volume is constrained the decision will generally be made to cease supplying slower selling products and switch as much production as possible into faster moving items.

Increasingly manufacturers are working with their customers to agree to concentrate production on branded rather than customer own label products, as it means less frequent changeovers on production lines and therefore more volume shifted
 

Jamiescott1

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You live and learn on this website. My very basic culinary food preparation knowledge tells me of different methods of cooking sprouts, but I suppose it will only be a chef at his highest pinnacle who knows how to "east" spouts.

I hope that one benefit of brexit (being very anti brexit) is that supermarkets stock more British fruit and veg such as greengages, chard, different types of cauliflowers.
 

Mojo

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I don’t see why not. As you say Morrison’s uses them as does Wetherspoons & self service resumed at all of theirs months ago.
I didn’t know they ever stopped it. They still seem to persist with their silly “clean cups only” rule (for refills) which is quite annoying.
Would it be possible to restrict sales of bottled water? It apparently costs 600 times more than tap water.
I saw an advert on the Underground a few days ago. It had a photo of a 500ml bottle of Evian water with a caption about how bad it is when your thirsty with a promise that it would be delivered within 15 Minutes.

I’m quite tempted to make a pitch to the company for a system of underground pipes that could deliver drinking water to your home within a fraction of a second!
 

py_megapixel

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I’m quite tempted to make a pitch to the company for a system of underground pipes that could deliver drinking water to your home within a fraction of a second!
But then it wouldn't be filtered through volcanic minerals for decades to give it a perfect refreshing taste, or whatever other marketing drivel bottled water companies are spouting at the moment.

I only ever buy bottled water if I am extremely thirsty and don't have access to water in any other form. It is not good value for money in my opinion and terrible for the environment.
 

dk1

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I didn’t know they ever stopped it. They still seem to persist with their silly “clean cups only” rule (for refills) which is quite annoying.

I saw an advert on the Underground a few days ago. It had a photo of a 500ml bottle of Evian water with a caption about how bad it is when your thirsty with a promise that it would be delivered within 15 Minutes.

I’m quite tempted to make a pitch to the company for a system of underground pipes that could deliver drinking water to your home within a fraction of a second!
Rules have changed on/off throughout the pandemic drama. Depends on the particular establishment as to how strict they are.
 

dk1

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Just been to Sainsbury’s & no issues at all. Plenty of everything I needed & didn’t see any bare shelves.
 

Gloster

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My local Morrison’s has just removed the ‘Ten items or fewer/less’ staffed tills, only one of which had been used on recent months. They appear to have added another pair of the self-scan tills with long belts.
 
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