Great 'supermarket staff tell us your reduction policies' hunt

paulwf

fantasy_dreams wrote: »

Can someone please explain to me why supermarkets deem it necessary to pour dye or bleach into their bins to destroy food ? If someone is desperate enough to rummage through your bins for food, why not just let them ? They are not likely to sue you for anything ? And the rats will eat it either way, they don't mind a bit of dye.

I really really do not understand this policy and find it to be unforgiveable. If you throw something in your bin, you make a clear statement that you no longer wish to own or use the item. Who takes it away (binmen or anyone else) should not matter.

I work for a supermarket but they don't dye their food. Therefore I have some ideas on why some *may* do it but it is just conjecture, not fact.

Firstly you need to know what food is in the bin. It isn't just food that is nearly out of date, there may be damaged, contaminated, mouldy or open items, and more seriously items that are "product restricted" i.e. items that are not allowed on sale due to quality issues which may be very minor or very serious. Basically not all the food is fit to eat, and even what is just regular date expired food may have been out of the fridge for several hours, which can be an issue in the summer (which is why freegans tend to be mainly vegan and just take the bread and veg which won't go off in the heat).

Secondly you need to know what may happen to food that is taken from bins. It may be sold on...and yes I have heard of a rogue charity collector doing this, it isn't just conjecture. When sold on and still in supermarket packaging that creates issues for the supermarket, both food safety and profit protection.

I'm not saying I agree with the amount of food shops waste, just that when you deal with the scale of supermarkets you need to think through the whole process very carefully. When I go to my local wholefood co-operative they just give out of date food to the regulars as a little reward, but it doesn't work like that with major retailers.

If a supermarket opens 24 hours a day and only removes food at 10pm what happens to the food then when a charity collector would only have 2 hours to collect and distribute it? Is there a local charity near every supermarket with a refridgerated van and kitchen ready to collect the food and cook it every day? Can the charity afford to bin the excess food...shop waste is very random, perhaps 100 of one item so you can't always use it in one day.

It really requires working out at council and government level, and now waste is costing so much to dispose of maybe retailers will get together, but as our council can't even manage something as simple as collecting glass bottles for recycling I somehow doubt it will happen any time soon.

fantasy_dreams

paulwf wrote: »

I work for a supermarket but they don't dye their food. Therefore I have some ideas on why some *may* do it but it is just conjecture, not fact.

Firstly you need to know what food is in the bin. It isn't just food that is nearly out of date, there may be damaged, contaminated, mouldy or open items, and more seriously items that are "product restricted" i.e. items that are not allowed on sale due to quality issues which may be very minor or very serious. Basically not all the food is fit to eat, and even what is just regular date expired food may have been out of the fridge for several hours, which can be an issue in the summer (which is why freegans tend to be mainly vegan and just take the bread and veg which won't go off in the heat).

Secondly you need to know what may happen to food that is taken from bins. It may be sold on...and yes I have heard of a rogue charity collector doing this, it isn't just conjecture. When sold on and still in supermarket packaging that creates issues for the supermarket, both food safety and profit protection.

I'm not saying I agree with the amount of food shops waste, just that when you deal with the scale of supermarkets you need to think through the whole process very carefully. When I go to my local wholefood co-operative they just give out of date food to the regulars as a little reward, but it doesn't work like that with major retailers.

If a supermarket opens 24 hours a day and only removes food at 10pm what happens to the food then when a charity collector would only have 2 hours to collect and distribute it? Is there a local charity near every supermarket with a refridgerated van and kitchen ready to collect the food and cook it every day? Can the charity afford to bin the excess food...shop waste is very random, perhaps 100 of one item so you can't always use it in one day.

It really requires working out at council and government level, and now waste is costing so much to dispose of maybe retailers will get together, but as our council can't even manage something as simple as collecting glass bottles for recycling I somehow doubt it will happen any time soon.

I completley understand regarding the quality issues and re-calls. But I guess thats a risk one takes when rummaging through bins ? I always assumed that is a taken ?

Resale now thats another issue and a bit of a grey area. If food is legal to take then one should be able to do with it as one likes. But on the other hand, the supermarket wouldn't have thrown it out if it wasn't either out of date or gone off, so the person re-selling it is falling foul of trading standards (selling things not fit for purpose) and should be fined ? I don't want anyone making a profit out of what Supermarkets have to throw away, but deliberately making food unfit seems wrong. And not environmentally friendly either.

I wish Freegans all the best but I am sure they have more upset stomachs than we do. I couldn't imagine picking my food between moldy salad leaves (and worse..summer...meat...urgh), but if it's what keeps them going....

I can also see the problem with the charities. It sounds easy "just give it to a shelter", but yes, there are a lot of things to be considered which I didn't even think of. Maybe it should be a council thing to provide a storage/processing warehouse where all supermarkets, hotels, fast food places etc could drop off food and then charities could come round and pick it up. If that gets extended to Meals on Wheels as well, it could even save the councils some money ?

paulwf

Some supermarkets are now sending their food off to some anaerobic digester type thingy to be turned into electricity, the containers are generally kept refridgerated until collection so there isn't any chance of dumpster diving at some stores these days anyway.

It's an issue that needs to be tackled at many levels. Do we really need 100% availability of all products at all times? My local wholefood co-op may run low on some items a day or two before the weekly delivery, you learn to know which days to shop, pre-order if you want items in bulk and pop back in another time if they are out of stock. Supermarkets are petrified of customers switching loyalty to another store.

Do we really need every ready meal available in premium, budget, meal for one, meal for two and family size? In fact do we even need ten different prepared and chilled potato products when they could be made in minutes from one type of potato.

Quick example: I've has customers angry when the store runs out of sliced carrots. I've pointed out that there are fresh carrots available for a fraction of the price and to slice and chop a carrot literally takes under a minute. You might as well be speaking to them in a foreign language *sigh*

Thinking about what happens to waste once generated is very important but it should be the last step.

andy12345

LOL

2 of us go into our local supermarket twice per week. Last year it was good, but blimey, those other customers were so rude, cloying, pushy. The worst was 1 person reducing and about 15 people waiting........

We got so disdained with those other "people" that we found ourselves moving away from them as the crowd enlarged so as to not be associated with the "mob"

The reductions are lessened now, which is a shame for us due to finances etc.

On the other hand it has helped me to avoid excessive pastries etc, simply because it's more well managed and to be honest, who really wants to eat junk just because it's reduced? mmmmmmmm...

So to the staff that suffered the experiences detailed in this thread, at least you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Invincible_2

I used to work behind the food counters in Waitrose and they have a fairly regimented reduction scheme.

All the behind the counter cream cakes have a one day life, so they usually start to get reduced around 5 or 6o/clock and can be up to half price (or more if they've not sold many that day). The person behind the counter decides on prices as and when they have time.
The self serve cakes also only have a one day life, things like singular doughnuts etc. In my store they got done at 6 so they had two hours to sell. These reductions are pre-done, whoever's in charge of doing it that day will fill in paperwork of original price - reduced price, and the office will sort it out so they go through properly on the tills. The loose bread are done at the same time on the same system.

Items on the deli generally got reduced throughout the day. On open up we check and slightly reduce everything for that date by a small amount. As the day goes on the reductions get larger.

Bread and cakes were done with a normal reduction sticker gun in the am.

Hope this is helpful!

Oh, and it really is annoying when you're sitting on the floor surrounded by bread, with literally 10 customers shoving loaves of bread in your face asking if you're going to reduce it. Sometimes it's impossible to simply 'take it out of sight' to reduce it - where bread's concerned you'd have a lot of angry customers if you completely emptied the section!
Tho I must say if I did have one polite customer, I would reduce for them. It's just hard when there's lots, do it for one, you have to do it for twenty.

thelurch

I used to get annoyed by the serial reduction hoverers who literally tore the item out of the staff members hand and then threw it in their trolley.

My favourite game at the moment, if I encounter someone like this who ends up hogging the reduced chiller, is to wait for them to pick the items and put them in their basket or trolley then I just take it straight out of their basket and put it in mine! Does make me giggle.

If it ends up being something I dont want then I will walk round till that person has moved away and then put it back in the chiller for someone else to have a chance.

andy12345

I just got back from a tesco conquest.

It was so quiet there and the rampaging hordes were only a couple of those "blockers" that just get in the bleeding way. Some people would look at me and think "gawd, that bloke's a right caveman, bet he pushes in"

As they are thinking that, these tiny human creatures just barge through with a smile, get their special hoover out and road runner speed hand blur technology. Bang, I'm left in a pile of dust and pastry crumbs.

I like thelurch's idea..

jenniewb

I have to say I have not yet met any of these blockers- I jsut normally say "excuse me" to anyone who is in the way and if they don't move just come out and say "mate, your in everyones way, no one can see anything" and they generally move- I'd not call that a blocker but then I may have different rules about it all!

The only thing that annoys me more then anything else is if someone grabs 10 of something and leaves nothing for anyone else, then I have no problems asking them to share or leave some for someone else, I am very good at giving an evil eye look and with others usually joining in (as it is in their benefit) it normally ends up with people sharing a bit more.

allybee101

jenniewb wrote: »

Wow! where do you shop?!

I have two tesco stores equally away from me, one is 24 hours, the other is the normal 10pm deal.

The 24 hour one will start the reductions at 7pm, by 9pm there is no more to reduce, its all pulled from the shelf as not to be sold by around 10pm. People do get there and wait/hover for ages, generally from 7pm.

The 10pm closing one though, will NOT reduce before 9pm, and even then thats if you are lucky- they are making problems for themselves here as there is often by then, a huge amount of people (its a very poor area) and by the time the machine is working, its 9.30pm. Customers are told if they take something from the shelf to be recuded, it will not be reduced, it has to insted, be left on the shelf until the reducing man reduces it. Generally staff by-pass this rule and will reduce whatever you ask them (nicely!) to do, but for the last few months, managers have benn watching staff or making spot-checks to make sure that nothing is reduced at a customers request, its all done by stuff left on the shelf.
The reason they are "making thier own bed" here is that the store is supposed to close at 10pm, but by the time all the customers are out (because they wait for the reductions, and the reductions will not scan at the till point, and there is a descrpency with the price...) means that staff are working much later then 10pm. I have before, left the store at 10.50pm and I was not the last one out by a long strech!

If I need reduced stuff, and its after 8.30pm, I don't bother with the 24hour store- it will be gone by the time I get there. It is however, enough time for me to get to the 10pm closing store, shop for basics and hang around for half an hour or more!

It was in Oakham - small town, only 2 supermarkets.
I now live in Nottingham so 24 hours shopping and therefore fewer decent reductions (although Sainsbury's & MOrrisons still have occasional bargains). Generally I find it's all convenience foods now and there's nothing particularly useful anymore.
Either that or I've lost the knack!
(P.S I was never a bargain hogger, I just look at the shelf as I pass, far too embarrassed to demand a discount!)

Beenie

where are you shopping?? the reductions in my local stores are usually cheap sausage rolls, unappetising looking cuts of greying meat, damaged cream cakes, suspect fish and the very occasional carton of organic milk. if i did buy any of this stuff, i'd save at most £2 on my total bill and the waste of valuable time makes it not worth the bother.

you can keep your bills down anyway by buying fresh goods and actually making something (e.g. proper pizza is laughably cheap, as is home-made hummous, custard, pastry, oven chips, cakes, bread etc. i'd rather spend time doing that than hanging around the reduction cabinet.