Aldi's Supermarket Secrets - 8pm Monday

VfM4meplse

Eenymeeny wrote: »

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who thought that reporting wasn't exactly unbiased. As for their policy of expecting staff on the shop floor 15 minutes before officially starting, I worked in retail for years and was always expected to be in early (without pay) so that the shop was customer-ready for 9am. In fact you got real attitude from the cash office if you turned up for your till bag at 8.55!

Actuallly, I think staff should be paid for 15 minutes prior to official starting, and 15 minutes afterwards to allow themselves to change into their uniforms at the start of a shift and own clothes at the end.

The uniforms atre there to protect the food from the staff, not the other way round! Yet I regularly see uniformed supermarket staff walking their dogs, on public transport etc. Don't get me started on the supermarket staff I see climbing onto lower food shelves to stack higher shelves, that is just gross. Not to mention the chap I saw in Mr Ts years ago who stopped stacking fresh bakery bread to scratch his a*rse. _pale_

dlusman

maman wrote: »

Slightly off topic: I've posted this before but can anyone tell me why some posters choose to post about Aldee or Sainsbobs or some other IMO ridiculous nickname? It has been suggested that it's to stop the retailers scanning for internet comments. Personally if I'm commenting on a supermarket (or a TV channel;)) I want them to read my comment whether it's good or bad. Why wouldn't I?

Exactly that. Presumably they are more worried about supermarkets scanning forums for posts about price glitches and faults. ( and so fix it quicker ) Never done it myself and never will.
I presume people are still doing it out of habit,

dlusman

maman wrote: »

So now we all know how to tell the BB date on Aldi's fruit and veg. Although my own Aldi has a really high turnover so it's not an issue. But the are just BB dates. Things with eat by timings are always marked.

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they didnt tell you exactly how to work it out. Although the code is week number/day of week, they didnt say how they started counting week numbers
e.g week 1 could be the first complete week in the year , with any days before that part of week 0. - which would mean we are currently in week 45
or week 1 could be the first week with any days in it. - which would give current week as 46

or they could start counting week numbers based on their own financial years ( rather than calendar years ). For example, I know that for WHSmith we are currently in week 11 , because they run financial years from beginning of September

Meadows

I found the programme very biased and why choose Aldi other than to try and sensationalise and to be honest it told me nothing that you would not expect. Is it because Aldi & Lidl are up and coming fast where the other supermarkets are falling.

I bet you can go to any store and pick fault with practises and policies especially heath & safety and being expected to be on checkouts earlier and stay behind after your time.

I find poor rotation in all the supermarkets at times, this is down to the person replenishing the stock whether they are management or shop floor staff.

I have to agree that Aldi & Lidl have impractical date markings on fresh fruit & veg which is a bit of a bugbear for me, how is the shopper expected to know what weeks number is current? The stores week number does not start at week one of a year, and their F&V can be hit and miss but so can some of the other supermarkets.

Feral_Moon

I'm almost certain that their bagged salads and some of the other chilled f&v have actual dates on the packaging. It's the ambient temp section of root veg, potatoes etc that seem to use the code but to be honest this is irrelevant to me anyway.

If produce looks and feels fresh then I buy it. If it doesn't then I don't. I never go by dates as all my f&v gets taken out of any packaging before being placed it in the fridge. Most lasts way beyond whatever the BB date is anyway if it's stored properly.

maman

dlusman wrote: »

they didnt tell you exactly how to work it out. Although the code is week number/day of week, they didnt say how they started counting week numbers
e.g week 1 could be the first complete week in the year , with any days before that part of week 0. - which would mean we are currently in week 45
or week 1 could be the first week with any days in it. - which would give current week as 46

or they could start counting week numbers based on their own financial years ( rather than calendar years ). For example, I know that for WHSmith we are currently in week 11 , because they run financial years from beginning of September

That's a good point but IIRC it was week 42 on the programme and that was towards the end of October so you're close. As my store has a high turnover and invariably boxes of fresh stuff waiting to go out, it wouldn't take long to work it out from looking at a few packs. Has anyone ever asked Aldi staff to explain it to them?

DomRavioli

I couldn't believe their "retail expert" had bankrupted two large chains! I've shopped at aldi for going on 20 years (when our store arrived). Never had a problem with freshness, compared to the other local supermarkets of Tesco and Morrisons, their F&V stay fresher for longer, and have done for a while.

As for the idiocy of not letting people pack at the till, that is how they run their stores. You pack after you've paid at a separate counter, its not rocket science.

If you want to go to a discount supermarket, expect little or no customer service. If you want to be mollycoddled around and have some mutton dressed as lamb middle aged woman attempt to talk to you whilst scanning your items (no, I don't want a conversation, just scan my goods and let me get out of here as soon as I can, thank you), then go to Tesco, and pay Tesco prices.

I used to be extremely loyal to Tesco when I moved 50 miles as it was the only convenient place to shop, but what they class as both value and customer service is poor and not worth the extra.

Jcrookie

They don't reduce the products as they just get wasted which might be something to look at but they don't keep things past their date, this programme pointed out isolated incidents. Are you telling me tesco has never found out of date products in their store? I've worked for 4 major retail companies and their all the same. We've found out of date products, we have time targets and we are to put items through the till fast (and that's from a high end supermarket) I could go on but you get my point, clutching at straws. The make it fair they should of gone undercover in all the different chains..................and there is a date code, which has been agreed with defra who work for the government but it's for the staff to do their jobs

Aoife76

This program really made me mad, at channel 4, not Aldi. My cousin works for Aldi and she said it's all been blown out of proportion. They used to require her to be in 15 minutes early, now its "in reasonable time before her shift" and even then the walk around store took a minute at best, she woke report any problems she saw that were urgent to a manager and then she was free to get a coffee and relax for the remainder of the time, getting herself ready for her shift, you know, name badge, pens etc.
She told me it's always reasonable, and she was happy with the idea.
Dispatches seem to want the public to hate aldi for that? And she's never seen the likes of the quality in the stores on the program, if they had rotten stuff on the shelf somebody would be getting dished out a warning for it. She said they have always been really strict on dates and quality. And whenever I have bought anything from there, and others around the area, there's never been this rubbish.
So they don't help you pack at the till and value speed over it, so what, they are always friendly and they get paid loads more than any retail I've ever heard of. She's been there three years and she's on a really really good wage. And she tells me the work is really hard, but if she works her best they are happy with that. People watching this probably have some silly ideas about the place now, I hope they see it for the stupid propaganda program it is, probably paid for by tesco bosses no doubt!!!!
As for the date codes, I asked one of their managers once, a long time ago. And he told me exactly how it works, you can't get more blinkin transparent than that. Think dispatches may as well investigate themselves for their next episode because what they have is a dodgy history now of half stories, this isn't the first time.
Long live aldi, and lidl too, we love them both. (Asda best for the things we can't get at Aldi, only fair to say)

Aoife76

She's just said those two stores need a new manager pronto, so in a way dispatches wasn't totally useless. Lol