Is anyone else sick of rotflation?

Citydel

Supermarkets in the UK have taken the best before/use by/display until dates off a lot of fruit and vegetables. They claim it's to reduce waste. If they really cared about waste they could bring back the deep discounting where they sold things at 90% off when it was about to expire.

Now I'm finding I'm getting and eating lots of rotten vegetables. Last night I made Spaghetti Bolognese with onions bought from Asda the day before. Turns out they were rotten. I can still taste the rotten onions 20 hours after I ate the spaghetti. I'd noticed the outer layer that wasn't dried out of both small onions had rotten yellow/tiny bit of mould but I removed those and thought it would be fine. 

A week a go I went to Waitrose to buy ginger. They had a full basket but every piece was dried out and/or had large amount of blue mould on the outside. 

Fruit and vegetables don't seem to last anywhere near as long as they did just a year ago. I used to associate that issue with buying from the very cheapest supermarkets. Now it's happening in with fruit and veg from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose (I don't have a Morrisons nearby or buy fruit and veg from Marks and Spencer). 

It seems like a new con like shrinkflation to hide inflation from us. I don't know if it has a name yet. Something like rotflation or rottenflation seems appropriate. 

What's happening to the farmers with this? Are the supermarkets buying significantly less produce from them?

Is anyone else noticing this phenomenon? 

Grumpy_chap

Citydel said:

Supermarkets in the UK have taken the best before/use by/display until dates off a lot of fruit and vegetables. They claim it's to reduce waste. If they really cared about waste they could bring back the deep discounting where they sold things at 90% off when it was about to expire.

Now I'm finding I'm getting and eating lots of rotten vegetables. Last night I made Spaghetti Bolognese with onions bought from Asda the day before. Turns out they were rotten. I can still taste the rotten onions 20 hours after I ate the spaghetti. I'd noticed the outer layer that wasn't dried out of both small onions had rotten yellow/tiny bit of mould but I removed those and thought it would be fine. 

A week a go I went to Waitrose to buy ginger. They had a full basket but every piece was dried out and/or had large amount of blue mould on the outside. 

Fruit and vegetables don't seem to last anywhere near as long as they did just a year ago. I used to associate that issue with buying from the very cheapest supermarkets. Now it's happening in with fruit and veg from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose (I don't have a Morrisons nearby or buy fruit and veg from Marks and Spencer). 

It seems like a new con like shrinkflation to hide inflation from us. I don't know if it has a name yet. Something like rotflation or rottenflation seems appropriate. 

What's happening to the farmers with this? Are the supermarkets buying significantly less produce from them?

Is anyone else noticing this phenomenon? 

Maybe the solution is to purchase fruit and veg from the local Greengrocer, where nothing is bagged and you can assess the freshness of the produce before purchase.

moneysaver1978

Brexit is probably one of the main culprits - we had a great Just-In-Time (JIT) system, getting fresh supplies as needed from Spain or France quickly with minimal fuss.

Now it is a lot more complicated with the need for more warehouses to store produce (rather than picked fresh from the fields and then sold in supermarkets quickly).

molerat

Asda bagged veg still has exactly the same date markings as it always had just in a different format.  The grapes I bought last week had C16 on them. C for March and 16 for. err, the 16th.  It ain't rocket science.  All the supermarkets are doing similar, you just need to figure out the code but Asda is by far the simplest.

mikb

Citydel said:

Last night I made Spaghetti Bolognese with onions bought from Asda the day before. Turns out they were rotten. I can still taste the rotten onions 20 hours after I ate the spaghetti.

Fruit and vegetables don't seem to last anywhere near as long as they did just a year ago.

It doesn't make sense to me to have made, and eaten, something using obviously rotten onions. If the outside was a bit manky, cutting it off and using the rest seems a good idea, but only if you've tasted it first!

Onions bought "a day before" don't go rotten that quickly, they must have been rotten at the point of sale -- I'm sure you would have got them exchanged/refunded. 

I've got onions that I bought a large pack of at ALDI which are at least 2 months old. Still firm. Some threatening to start growing roots ... must be Spring! They are not stored as per instructions (keep them in the bag, in the fridge). No. I refuse. They are loose, with airflow, in a cool dark place.

I wonder sometimes if the instructions on the veg is designed to get you to store it in such a way that you reduce the life of the item. Same with apples, potatoes. They store for ages in the same conditions. Yet, people complain that they "go off, go rotten" in a few days after purchase.

MrsStepford

1. Look on the labels for country of origin, can be Egypt, Israel, Kenya, Peru, China to avoid EU, so longer journey times and quality issues.
2. Brexit effects e.g. delays for paperwork and traffic. Operation Brock is back on the M20 since Wednesday but not even mentioned in traffic reports. 
3. Supermarkets buying cheaper produce with shorter shelf life to keep produce prices lower.
4. Many fruit & veg picked when majority of crop is ripe and put into cold storage. Apples will keep for a year.
5. When you buy fruit & veg it's rare to find a harvest date, so you don't know how old it is or how it has been stored.

Carrots are often chilled now but weren't years ago. I bought a bag of carrots from Tesco. There was actual water in the bag before we got from checkout to car. Even though we removed plastic and dried each carrot with kitchen paper, by the next morning they were black with mould. 

I buy organic whenever possible, not having these issues. If I can't find an organic version of a veg, I buy frozen. 

Citydel

mikb said:

Onions bought "a day before" don't go rotten that quickly, they must have been rotten at the point of sale -- I'm sure you would have got them exchanged/refunded. 

I think you are right that at least one of those onions was slightly rotten when I bought it. I looked in the bag and they all looked fine. It was only when I cut in that I saw the outer most juicy layer was yellowed and had some black mould. It may just have been knocked and bruised.

Taking things back to the supermarket is time I don't have. Especially when I'm trying to cook a meal.

My frustration is that it used to be an extremely rare occurrence that veg would rot. It's all getting used within two weeks of me buying it - most within one week. It seems that in the past year it's become a commonplace occurrence for me - several vegetables are rotting in each week's shop.

MrsStepford said:
1. Look on the labels for country of origin, can be Egypt, Israel, Kenya, Peru, China to avoid EU, so longer journey times and quality issues.
2. Brexit effects e.g. delays for paperwork and traffic. Operation Brock is back on the M20 since Wednesday but not even mentioned in traffic reports. 
3. Supermarkets buying cheaper produce with shorter shelf life to keep produce prices lower.
...

Carrots are often chilled now but weren't years ago. I bought a bag of carrots from Tesco. There was actual water in the bag before we got from checkout to car. Even though we removed plastic and dried each carrot with kitchen paper, by the next morning they were black with mould. 

Carrots are a vegetable that I noticed changed about 5-10 years ago. As you say they are always wet in the bag now. I also dry them out overnight before putting them in the fridge's crisper, which seems to keep them fresh the longest. They start rotting straight away if you don't take them out of the bag. I wondered if they started scrubbing them that damaged them and made them rot so quickly. You may be right that it's just from chilling. I don't think they used to put them wet in those plastic bags in the past.

Perhaps it is Brexit as you say. I saw a report showing a lorry driver who said it used to be that you'd pick up a load and go. Now he was saying that now almost every time he has to wait hours or days to pick up each load because one tiny thing wrong on the pages and pages of paperwork. Though I see that report is from 2 years ago not from the past year to coincide with what I've seen in the past year.

I suspect you are right about it being cheaper, lower grade, less fresh produce. But for the same price. Which would be rotflation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4AsbMForiw

dgp1000

It was pretty obvious this was all about passing their food waste onto their customers. Have stopped buying from them because it got so bad in our local Sainsbury’s you could smell the rotting broccoli. Now have a veg box topped up at the new local greengrocers.

Tino1970

Grumpy_chap said:

Citydel said:

Supermarkets in the UK have taken the best before/use by/display until dates off a lot of fruit and vegetables. They claim it's to reduce waste. If they really cared about waste they could bring back the deep discounting where they sold things at 90% off when it was about to expire.

Now I'm finding I'm getting and eating lots of rotten vegetables. Last night I made Spaghetti Bolognese with onions bought from Asda the day before. Turns out they were rotten. I can still taste the rotten onions 20 hours after I ate the spaghetti. I'd noticed the outer layer that wasn't dried out of both small onions had rotten yellow/tiny bit of mould but I removed those and thought it would be fine. 

A week a go I went to Waitrose to buy ginger. They had a full basket but every piece was dried out and/or had large amount of blue mould on the outside. 

Fruit and vegetables don't seem to last anywhere near as long as they did just a year ago. I used to associate that issue with buying from the very cheapest supermarkets. Now it's happening in with fruit and veg from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose (I don't have a Morrisons nearby or buy fruit and veg from Marks and Spencer). 

It seems like a new con like shrinkflation to hide inflation from us. I don't know if it has a name yet. Something like rotflation or rottenflation seems appropriate. 

What's happening to the farmers with this? Are the supermarkets buying significantly less produce from them?

Is anyone else noticing this phenomenon? 

Maybe the solution is to purchase fruit and veg from the local Greengrocer, where nothing is bagged and you can assess the freshness of the produce before purchase.

What I wouldn’t give for a local Greengrocer. Not even sure where my nearest is!

Grumpy_chap

Tino1970 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Citydel said:

Supermarkets in the UK have taken the best before/use by/display until dates off a lot of fruit and vegetables. They claim it's to reduce waste. If they really cared about waste they could bring back the deep discounting where they sold things at 90% off when it was about to expire.

Now I'm finding I'm getting and eating lots of rotten vegetables. Last night I made Spaghetti Bolognese with onions bought from Asda the day before. Turns out they were rotten. I can still taste the rotten onions 20 hours after I ate the spaghetti. I'd noticed the outer layer that wasn't dried out of both small onions had rotten yellow/tiny bit of mould but I removed those and thought it would be fine. 

A week a go I went to Waitrose to buy ginger. They had a full basket but every piece was dried out and/or had large amount of blue mould on the outside. 

Fruit and vegetables don't seem to last anywhere near as long as they did just a year ago. I used to associate that issue with buying from the very cheapest supermarkets. Now it's happening in with fruit and veg from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose (I don't have a Morrisons nearby or buy fruit and veg from Marks and Spencer). 

It seems like a new con like shrinkflation to hide inflation from us. I don't know if it has a name yet. Something like rotflation or rottenflation seems appropriate. 

What's happening to the farmers with this? Are the supermarkets buying significantly less produce from them?

Is anyone else noticing this phenomenon? 

Maybe the solution is to purchase fruit and veg from the local Greengrocer, where nothing is bagged and you can assess the freshness of the produce before purchase.

What I wouldn’t give for a local Greengrocer. Not even sure where my nearest is!

We have one in the High Street.  So does the next main shopping street, even better than ours. 

We also have two bakers and two butchers.

The next main shopping street also has a fish monger, where I once had a Saturday job.

Long time since we had a candle stick maker, though we do have a gift shop selling Yankee Candles.

Are Greengrocers really a rarity - more than one response in this thread suggesting that may be the case.

Farway

Grumpy_chap said:

Are Greengrocers really a rarity - more than one response in this thread suggesting that may be the case.

My assumption is it all depends on locality, small village or suburban area I'd guess not, a bit like these mythical Asian or Chinese supermarkets we are advised to find stuff in, maybe loads around but not universal