[OT] Supermarket shitlists

[fred]

Following Mr UPVC's kind mention of discounted compact fluorescents at Tesco I thought I'd detour past my nearest one today to see if they had any stock.

It's been closed for ages for a total rebuild so thought I'd check first to see if it was open again:

1. Website says yeeeey, these are our opening hours but please check with the store, number given.

2.1. Call store, are you open? Yep, sure are.

2.2. Ooh great, when did it reopen after the refurb? 2.3. You know, has it been a month, a few days, what? 2.4. Oh yeah, we just reopened last week. 2.5. Great, thanks for the help, see you tomorrow.

1. Detours past store to check today and the place is still a building site, security fenced, no access, building not even closed to the elements.

In summary, web site wrong, call centre op (as it turned out) lied through his teeth and Tesco don't give a flying f'ck.

So, I'd like to nominate Tesco for the supermarket shit list this week.

Any other nominations?

[Phil L]

Yes, I'd like to nominate Tesco for selling shit food - seriously, I've never had anything from there that's been nice - their pies, sausage rollls and cold meats have got to be the worst available in the developed world - how can you f*ck up boiled ham? - I've no idea but they manage to make it taste like salty polythene with added gristle. Their bread is stale when you buy it and tastes like cardboard and the veg have usually rotted away before you've got them home....I can't be certain but I think they're buying Asda smart price stuff that has passed it's sell by date and repackaging it as their own

[geoff]

In message , fred writes

Or -you dialled a slightly different number and the person on the other end, getting fed up with these phone calls, was winding you up

[fred]

In article , geoff writes

Possible I suppose but he must get quite a few calls, he had the, "Hello, Tesco, Nick speaking" off to a tee.

[john]

And I'll nominate Tesco (spit!) for their s**te 60Watt pearl incandescent bulbs. Bought a dozen and they ALL blew with a fourtnight. Email them and they tell me to take the packaging back to get a refund. Who FFS keeps their cardboard bulb cartons?. (and their "food" is third rate s**te as well :)

[Tim Watts]

Phil L wibbled on Friday 06 August 2010 20:00

Yep. I've had comparitively short shelf life food from them. Sainsburies were better until they dropped a very critical line. So I switched to Ocado/Waitrose which turns out no more expensive if you choose the more basic stuff (which is as good as or nicer that the non value lines in other supermarkets.

And Ocado give you a guaranteed min shelf life of every fresh product (it's often longer).

[js.b1]

Never eat Asda "own brand"...

Low calorie - we made it smaller. Chocolate pudding - diamond core dust is more edible. Bread - congratulations you got the bag of salt. Diet hot chocolate - brilliant, you'll never want to eat again. Ham - mechanically recovered, from the ceiling of the chainsaw massacre. Extra Special - more sugar than Tait-n-Lyle's inventory. Toilet Paper - forget diamond dust, this stuff is worse. Better than chocolate pudding though.

Sunday, the day when you probably want 24/7 opening - they shut at

4pm.

Only good thing is the branded stuff is cheap if you time things right.

Overall the simple question is why is the most profitable UK business a Supermarket or "Warehouse". I guess the same reason banks are paying

0% and charging 6-33%. Some farmers do ok, many are stuck between the poor house & self-sufficiency if you are a rabbit. I guess the old adage, don't buy the crap product they sells like hot cakes, buy those selling it.

[john]

I did some technical work for a Tesco sub-contractor. They explained Tesco's business practice wrt suppliers. The first year is always good business with Tesco, lulling the supplier into a false sense of security. Once essentially locked in and from then on, year by year, Tesco turn the screws until they have the suppliers by the balls. I've never had much truck with 'poor' farmers but in Tesco's case this is the result. It's either continue dealing with Tesco or write off everything and try to start again. Yes, a profitable company. Even then, their labyrinthine accounting structures seemingly display only a selected part of the real profits.

[brass monkey]

If you need to re-sole your shoes, Asda beef. I also object to some of their offers, similar to £2.50 each or 2 for £3. Just shows what profit they're making and the poor old biddy who doesn't need/want 2 gets screwed (bad choice of word). Re: Tesco - They built a new Tesco near us (selling crap as usual) and effectively killed the town and markets. Why is it that nobody bothers to look in the town and buy decent quality stuff? 50 yards from Tesco carpark and folks could buy proper food.

[sm_jamieson]

True, although some people are so stupid. "I bought 2 and I didn't need the other one so I chucked it in the bin". Freeze the stupid thing. Just about anything will freeze. Same with reduced price offers 'cos the date is nearly up. Freeze it, and the use-by date is suspended ! And the best value ham I've found is "offcuts" from iceland. Sometimes its rubbish (check through the plastic wrap), but often its small pieces of pretty good ham. I've got 3 in the freezer at the moment. =A31.50 a pack. Simon.

[Andy Cap]

That seems *really* unfair to me. I feel like taking the offer and then flogging them at the reduced price at the door, but I don't have the time.

Because the Councils are making it impossible to drive into town and if you can be bothered, the parking charges are horrific. Years ago, Swansea I think it was, had two lanes in up to 3'oclock, reversed to two lanes out for the rest of the day, which seemed a good idea ! Now we're restricted by bus and cycle lanes, which rarely see a bike, congesting the town even more. I live on the outskirts of a largish city and rarely go in there. Mind you, if they did attempt to resolve the imbalance, it would be by charging for parking at the supermarket, not the other way round, that's for sure. I've always felt it should be free to park in your own town anyway.

Andy C

[Jim K]

no s*1t sherlock..

they declare just enough for the market boys to keep the share prices up i.e. a corporate "all is well" signal - just like the bankers - "oooh we made a bit sure but no don't be silly, we can't pay you back anything just yet" maybe soon......

great stuff!

Jim K

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, seen many a town centre die after the council introduces car parking charges, removes free parking spaces, etc.

I lived in Dunstable in the early 1980s. A wonderful small town centre. It drew shoppers from all the higher class nearby towns and villages, enabling it to punch well above its weight in quality of shops for the size of the town, and all free parking was a big attraction over the nearby, and much bigger, Luton. It had high class multiples, and also many individual specialist stores.

Then in the early 1990s (can't recall now exactly when), the council decided to make money out of parking. I wrote a long letter to the council explaining exactly what would happen, and the local paper also summarised my letter. I gives me no satisfaction to say I was

100% correct, and the town has been dead (as a shopping centre) for many years now. Actually, it's interesting to consider what happened to just one key retail premises in the centre...

Waitrose -> Safeway -> Kwiksave -> empty -> Poundland.

Kind of sums up what the local council did to the town.

Sainsburys and Tescos moved out of the town centre to sites where they had control of their own car parks. Coop closed when the free car park next to it closed. All the specialist shops closed because the shops for your weekly shopping had gone, so people not coming in to the town centre anymore and no passing trade. It's now mostly derelict retail units.

I'm not claiming town centres could carry on just as they did 30 years ago in the age of the interweb, but the destruction in this case was almost entirely council driven.

[R D S]

Indeed.

I can't decide what I find more surprising. The fact that such a vast percentage of the population are happy to give so much of their hard earned to an unscrupulous, tax dodging, peddlar of s**te such as Tesco. Or that when someone comes up with a new product they are happy to roll over and hand it to Tesco on a plate for next to nothiong.

[Tim Streater]

[snip]

I think in some places, there are issues with shortage of parking. In Ely, f'rinstance, too many free parking spaces were being taken up by commuters from the surrounding area parking all day where shoppers might otherwise park.

What you need is *low* parking fees. In Newmarket we always used to find the long-term car park absolutely full, until they introduced sensible limits and parking fees of 20p/hour. Suddenly, you could park there and go shopping.

Cambridge, by contrast, they're trying to charge 20p for 10 mins in some places.

[Tim Watts]

harry wibbled on Saturday 07 August 2010 08:36

It does from Tescos! (Veg and fruit anyway).

But otherwise I agree, assuming the produce is decent to start with, I keep chicken for useby+1 day, other meats for +2-3 days, most veg for useby+1 week and milk keeps going well past its date too. A good fridge with well designed veggie drawers set to 4C helps too - I've noticed I'm getting better keepage since I had the new fridge, including the veggies don't wilt/go soft.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Dunstable used that argument, but it wasn't true. The town was very fortunate to have loads of parking well spread through the centre, which wasn't normally full. It probably doesn't have as much nowadays, as it's no longer needed. Some of it had shops build on it, which are now derelict.

Even if that was an issue, they simply need to make it free for first 2-3 hours, but that wasn't going to claw in enough money. Any parking charge is a psychological block - it's someone ripping you off before you've even bought anything. I make a point of not shopping anywhere I have to pay for parking, on principle, and apparently so do many others, and shops know this very well which is why many of them have moved to premises where they control the parking, not the council, out of town centres.

Easily solved if you want to. OTOH, if you want to make money out of the spaces, that's a completely different matter.

Some places just don't want you. Reading is another one. I was born and brought up there, and the council's traffic policy was always to make it as painful as possible for motorists so they don't use the town. Worked for me - I never shop there anymore. Final straw was one of those council parking restriction signs specifically designed to lure you to a space where you're going to get a ticket from lurking wardens as soon as you're out of sight of your car (and subsequently rulled illegal, but I'd paid and chucked the ticket by then, so I couldn't claim it back).

(I've always chosen to live within walking distance of town centres, so I don't drive for my regular shopping anyway.)

[Tim Streater]

D'you mean as in you still need to get a ticket from the machine, but it would cost nowt unless you dialed up more than say 2 hours?

I don't object to paying 20p/hour.

I knew some of the councillors involved and tried to get the idea in their heads that, for a scheme to be accepted, it's important that it be

*clear* that it's not a money making exercise. Part of the problem is that in some cases it's the officers that come up with a scheme.

Ha! I know that one! They do the same in Lewes. Small panels distinguish between residents' parking and PAYG spots. But the small panels are 20 feet up lamp posts. Also they have this trick where its free at weekends, but *not* on bank holidays.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Andrew. I just HAVE to copy this to Cam.misc. Sorry. Have been arguing precisely the same thing with them.

Unfortunately there the town is FULL of cyclists who have organised themselves onto the council..

[Bob Eager]

Here in Herne Bay, they've just done a similar thing. The main shopping street is actually not very near the only large car park (which is expensive anyway). But it's very near the seafront, and parking *was* free. They've now started charging, and we now find that the town centre is deserted (it was today, a Saturday morning). And nearly all the spaces on the seafront were...empty. The shopkeepers (nearly all small businesses) are not happy.