Tesco home deliveries - are they dumping short-dated stuff on customers at home?

Doc_N

Yet again a load of short-dated produce this morning, all Best Before 13 July (tomorrow). Makes an absolute mockery of Tesco’s claims that their pickers always select the best items and the longest dates.

Happens very regularly, and my guess is that pickers are being instructed by store managers to get rid of the short dated stuff this way. 

Anyone else finding similar problems?

Cheslea2010

Happens all the time. The pickers pick the stuff from the front of the shelves which has a short date. To be fair that is the least of my problems when it comes to Tesco home delivery. When it was my child's' 6th birthday, we ordered a number "6" birthday cake candle. When the shopping arrived we looked at our substitutes and they sent us a "5" and a "1" 

badmemory

When ordering it should tell you how long a date they are on.  Try rejecting if they don't.  Yes it will be inconvenient.  I was post-op when I did it, thank goodness for freezers.  If they don't give you the proper "lead" time on food then they are not fullfilling their contract.  I have to say though that I would not trust any supermarket to get a special cake candle right.  The real problem is who they have picking for the order.  If you don't reject then that person will not know that they are messing up your plans.  It really is that simple.

UnsureAboutthis

you can reject

we buy strawberries and the site states 2+ days but is often 1 day ie next day best by. But thats ok. Everything else is pretty good, date wise.  We live in london, possibly a high turnover of stock.

elsien

You can also eat stuff after the best before date. I do so regularly. It’s the use by age you need to be concerned about.

mjm3346

Years ago I saw Tesco pickers in action and I don't think they deliberately selected short dated food it's just what is easiest to get at, which is the stuff at the front of the shelf which will usually have the shortest dates - The Ocado site shows the minimum number of days you have after delivery as well as stating what the recent average has been. Only problem I have with Ocado is when veg/salad stuff states British and it isn't (onions recently were from Egypt - but I get full refund before chucking them out).

Doc_N

I appreciate that BB dates are very different indeed from Use By dates, and Tesco will happily and gracefully refund if you phone them about a date which is shorter than the one advertised on the website.

My gripe really is the downright lie they spread about pickers always choosing the nicest items with the longest dates when that’s patently not the case. I suspect it’s actually worse than that - I think they’re actually being told to choose the shortest dates to minimise the risk of instore reductions or wastage. A delivery customer is a captive customer.

I find it difficult to believe that all the fruit we received today with a BB date of tomorrow was the longest dated stock available.

badmemory

I doubt they are doing that to be honest.  They are just going round doing it as fast as they can.  The number of times I have picked up the top item & looked at the date and said to myself no way.  Then delved.  You have no idea how glad I am that I am still able to drive myself to the shops & make my own selections.  I had 4 weeks post op when I couldn't & it was so frustrating as they couldn't even get the Aldi price match right - bananas.  I had their complaints on speed dial.

UnsureAboutthis

badmemory said:

I doubt they are doing that to be honest.  They are just going round doing it as fast as they can.  The number of times I have picked up the top item & looked at the date and said to myself no way.  Then delved.  You have no idea how glad I am that I am still able to drive myself to the shops & make my own selections.  I had 4 weeks post op when I couldn't & it was so frustrating as they couldn't even get the Aldi price match right - bananas.  I had their complaints on speed dial.

Exactly that. We do home deliver & click and collect and have always been happy.

As another said - Tesco is very good at refunds.  A few times this was about a year or two into covid, the breads where mashed but heavier item on top. I just rang them to let them know to advise staff to be a it more carful when putting into basket/bags etc - to my surprise they refunded the money.

We also do odds and aenda t Sainsiburys, Morrisons etc - Tesco appears to have stopped doing a choice of 12 large eggs and we by from the other places and always look at the date. Bread is often one we pick up and look at the date abd then reach to the back of the shelf.
Often, bread has a good date at tescos as does milk etc. Tesco strawberries often state 2+ days but last a few days more easily even if the date is 1+ as we order 1200 grams.

jon81uk

Doc_N said:

My gripe really is the downright lie they spread about pickers always choosing the nicest items with the longest dates when that’s patently not the case. I suspect it’s actually worse than that - I think they’re actually being told to choose the shortest dates to minimise the risk of instore reductions or wastage. A delivery customer is a captive customer.

Do you have a link to anything where Tesco state they will pick "the nicest items with the longest dates"?

I doubt they are deliberately told to choose short ones, they are just taking from the front of the shelf rather than rummaging to the back. All supermarkets would like it if everyone did this anyway and took the front items and not the back ones anyway.