Great 'supermarket staff, tell us your reduction policies' Hunt

Tinyshoes

fruitcake wrote: »

.....In general, I get told different policies according to the SA, some tell me they hate their job and don't care if things get thrown away at the end of the day, as they have too many other jobs to do. Some are very helpful and tell you the time that the items are likely to be reduced. I do in general feel sorry for the overworked, short staffed stores. But there is no excuse for throwing out goods that people are willing to buy at the end of the day for a reasonable price.

The local Sainsbury constantly has out of date items and sell by out dated items on their shelves. the SA's just throw them out or even put the items back on the shelves!

The worst case of wastage has to be the Marks and Spencer Stores.....they throw trolleys and trolleys of goods out. I was so disgusted that I had to ask a manager what their policy was, and I was told that it is a shame and that the staff aren't even allowed to take the goods home or have it at a reduced rate.....I really can't shop there at the end of the day....makes me sob.

I totally agree, my local Tesco always used to take 90% off all its bakery products around 8pm, first they stopped reducing any of the instore baked bread and as Im often shopping then I would watch it being thrown into trolleys and now over last couple of months the same with all the pastries, cookies, and muffins etc. It really does bring tears to my eyes to see all this food going to waste. I always wonder why they bake so much in the first place? I wonder if any Tesco employees can enlighten us to why this seems to be their policy now?

They still reduce bread and cakes that are not baked instore and fresh and meat produce, managed to pick up some bargains last night, fresh cream chocolate eclairs for 14p, something I dont normally buy at Mr Ts!! I wish I could afford to shop elsewhere all of the time and not be part of the supermarket system but these occasional bargains are a way of subsidising my shop at local butchers and my organic veg delivery. But with a family I do have to do a round of the local supermarkets for essentials.

The_Old_Bag

I used to work for M&S many centuries ago - and at the end of the day, sell-by-date food was reduced - for staff only to buy.

I have noticed that my local small M&S now do sell-by-date reductions - about 50% off on their 'fresh' produce. I have now added M&S to my Bargain Run, and have had some lovely bits and pieces.
I assumed all M&S stores now reduced food for customers - but maybe this is another example of "Managers Discretion"

Toc13

WickedAunt wrote: »

Asda in Hatfield doesn't make large reductions,

All I can say is that you must be going in at the wrong time.
Between 6 & 8 pm seems to be the best time as you can find many things up to 80% off
Our little haul yesterday included:
Steak reduced from £8.32 to £1.50
Ray Wings reduced from £4.50 to £0.90
Rolls reduced from £0.67 to £0.05
Bread reduced from £0.65 to £0.10

Bakery reductions are very good & nearly all of it is freezable

toms2cv

I was told by a person at sainsburys while they were doing the reductions that if for example an item is flashed buy one get one free and they are reduced thay still have to honour the bogof promotion on items that are not sainsburys branded - to this end i got 2 prepacked salmon stakes for 10p each reduced from £6.99 then they were bogof so got 2 for 1 meaning £13.98 worth of fish for 10p or 2.5p per stake i bought all they had and filled up the freezer for 90p had to rebag them to make them fit result :cool:

eagle_eye

For me the best store for reductions is Waitrose - not because they have the cheapest prices necessarily - but because the staff seem to have the most lattitude to offer you a discount if you are interested in an item. Several times on the meat and fish counter I have enquired how much for the lot when looking at some reduced sea food or some chops and they have offered me a further reduction. Additionally they want to sell the items and are pleased when you take it. What's more the food is always good quality. They seem to have a much better idea than Tescos do when determining what products are nearing their sell-by date as they all appear on their hand-helds. Only problem is that they are not listed in the sequence that they are found in store so the reduction staff whizz about the store from location to location with a trolley laden with reduced items. As already stated you shouldn't follow them around as some of them don't like it so you have to peer down isles or go and look at another section and come back 3 minutes later and hope that something in their trolley is still available.

With Tesco the staff that do tomorrow's reductions often discover stuff that is to be reduced today - or even past it's date[that is put on the bottom of their trolley]. So it's worth noting where they are working and checking if there are any goodies on offer. Sometimes they reduce it immediately, other times they will put it in the reduced section for someone else to do. Often reductions are done around the same time at different parts of the store so it's worth knowing what the yellow label machine sounds like. At Tesco a lot of the staff don't like doing the reductions as it often resembles feeding time at the zoo. Whatever you do don't shove your 50% items in the face of staff asking for 75%. Often they will work 1 shelf at a time and don't want to disrupt their process. It's different if you are the only one there, but it's not often that happens. If you are pleasant and not pushy and don't take all of 1 item when other people are waiting you will get a lot more in the long term.I know all the regular "yellow labellers" in my store and we always swap info on what bargains there are, or what was availble earlier! We even shop for each other so that one waits for veg reductions and another waits for meat reductions - providing we know what each other wants.

One final warning - always check your bill when buying reduced items as sometimes only 1 label is put on and the check out staff may have registered the wrong one! Besides if you do notice a mistake Tesco will give you back double the difference.;)

Stryder

scoobydoo2 wrote: »

A bit out of date but interesting all the same!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6676345.stm

This was a well publicised and interesting documentary.

It pointed out staff (and often, management, its where the buck stops) incompetence. Seen similar expose on Sainsburys too.

This is why going to your local butchers/fish mongers/etc is a good but often expensive option. Sadly, I generally can not afford that i go where I must.

I get annoyed with Tescos though - veg goes down to 15p quite often - meat never really goes to 50% off, and definately not more. Cold meats seem to stay at 75% price. WHY? is this going to waste or are staff eating a lot of meat these days???

Stryder

Here is what I know - fill me in if you know more
WARRINGTON:
TESCO: its a 24hr store, and its pretty random. Bread is not reduced much, and I have had some reduced bread that was mouldy so I do not bother. There is always cold meat reduced, but I think its 25% and no more, no matter when. Fruit and Veg can go down as little at 15p etc, but timings I am not sure. I think its usually done around 7pm to catch the evenings perusers rather than people shopping for dinner.
ASDA. Almost not worth it. imagine fighting the 2nd armoured division of the pensioners club. Some really aggressive and unpleasant people around for sundays (post 3.30pm) reductions and I have seen people stand infron of the reductions take EVERYTHING that CSA's mark down. ridiculous. stiull some bargains.
Sainsbury's. Not sure but when the meat is low in stock on the deli counter, they mark it half price and wrap it up in bags. Got some amazing beef ribs the other day.

Anyone with Warrington tips - please help! further info required!

NOTE best ever store was Altrincham, Sainsbury's years ago where you could get fillet steaks for 30 or 40 p, and ALL bakery/veg products for 5 or 10 p.
I often used to get 6 full bags out of a tenner!

jenniewb

I find a huge amount of variation from store to store- even from the same brand!

One Sainsburys seems to do their reductions once at 12pm and then not reduce anymore from that. It gets reduced up to 25% (but no more then that) sometimes it all goes, other times it all gets binned, the staff don't seem to care.
Another Sainsburys reduce throughout the day every day as whenever I go in stuff has often more then one sticker on and nothing is left by around 9pm.

Similar in Tescos. But I do think this varies a great deal depending on how nasty the customers can be. In one store some people like to snatch...out of your trolley! I managed to find one of the reducing machine men to ask if something I had was going to be reduced as it was 9pm (store closed at 10pm). He glanced over his shoulder, asked if I had anything else and then went on to reduce the item but kept looking over his shoulder, then said he had to be quick as he was "afraid of being in this area, the customers get really spiteful", they often reduce stuff out the back and then bring it round or don't reduce at all and as much as I am reliant on reduced priced food, I don't blame them at all!

Another Tescos doesn't reduce at all as they never have the staff- you ask, they say they are short staffed. Whilst another reduces stuff on the clock at specific times each day most days without fail.

I have been to a Waitrose who are quite strict. I have to say the things I see reduced (and I mainly go for fruit and vegetables) are in such dire straits I now don't bother! If you pick up an item and its in your basket, they will NOT reduce it further full stop unless you decide not to buy it and even then its questionable. The reductions are poor (10p, 20p off) until about 30 mins before the store closes which it suddenly becomes 10p, 20p 50p sort of thing on everything that is left, but you have to wait and see as stuff gets taken out to the back of ths store and sometimes does not appear until 10 mins before the store is shut, other times not at all. And as I say, the quality is far from edible in most cases. But having said that I don't rate Waitrose fruit and veg for quaility anyway.
I like to think that all Waitrose stores are not like this!

eagle_eye

jenniewb wrote: »

I find a huge amount of variation from store to store- even from the same brand!

Similar in Tescos. But I do think this varies a great deal depending on how nasty the customers can be. In one store some people like to snatch...out of your trolley! I managed to find one of the reducing machine men to ask if something I had was going to be reduced as it was 9pm (store closed at 10pm). He glanced over his shoulder, asked if I had anything else and then went on to reduce the item but kept looking over his shoulder, then said he had to be quick as he was "afraid of being in this area, the customers get really spiteful", they often reduce stuff out the back and then bring it round or don't reduce at all and as much as I am reliant on reduced priced food, I don't blame them at all!

Same in our Tescos although they have stopped reducing it out the back as it against store practice.

eagle_eye

jenniewb wrote: »

I find a huge amount of variation from store to store- even from the same brand!



I have been to a Waitrose who are quite strict. I have to say the things I see reduced (and I mainly go for fruit and vegetables) are in such dire straits I now don't bother! If you pick up an item and its in your basket, they will NOT reduce it further full stop unless you decide not to buy it and even then its questionable. The reductions are poor (10p, 20p off) until about 30 mins before the store closes which it suddenly becomes 10p, 20p 50p sort of thing on everything that is left, but you have to wait and see as stuff gets taken out to the back of ths store and sometimes does not appear until 10 mins before the store is shut, other times not at all. And as I say, the quality is far from edible in most cases. But having said that I don't rate Waitrose fruit and veg for quaility anyway.
I like to think that all Waitrose stores are not like this!

It obviously varies from store to store as in our Waitrose the veg is always reasonable quality. Also I only go for 75% reductions as the initial price is so high, but I still find quite a few items probably because there are less bargain hunters than in Tescos. The 75% reductions start somewhere around 1.5 to 2 hours before closing.