Pre-Packed Fruit & Veg

[tyred]

Ooops

You could try sticking a piece of copper and a piece of zinc in a lemon to replace your battery.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

You could try sticking a piece of copper and a piece of zinc in a lemon to replace your battery.

Wouldn’t that make the car a bit of a lemon?

 

[Reynard]

Sorry @vickster but it’s obvious ,the function of @Ming the Merciless car battery has lot to do with fruit and veg packaging . He will need his car to go and buy his fruit and veg .

o/~ oh, you took the words right out of my mouth... o/~

 

[mjr]

How come this is only affecting the UK? No problems here in Holland and from what I've heard from friends and colleagues in Germany, France and Belgium, no problems there either.

According to BBC News last week, it's because the price-set-in-advance contracts UK supermarkets have with various growers meant many northern European growers did the maths and decided fuel prices meant it wasn't worth heating the greenhouses for that this year, so planted less when the supermarkets declined to increase prices, which they try to avoid for basic produce because it will make them look worse in comparisons. Nobody panicked because they'd still probably source enough from southern Europe and northern Africa, but then the weather there was poor and less supply means higher prices. Small greengrocers and markets still have supply, but prices have increased.

According to Belgian TV News on Friday, it's because of all that, plus the UK suffers because many southern European growers would rather sell their reduced amount of veg in the EU because it's less red tape (export/import paperwork) and less risk of produce getting spoiled during any transport or customs delays. UK supermarket contracts mostly make them share spoilage costs, and that's not so much the case selling to wholesalers in smaller countries.

Bizarrely, the other UK story on Belgian news last week was the shortage of bellringers for the coronation.

 

[mjr]

On a serious note, I've not found a shortage of anything at all around here on my visits to the shops, and others I know are wondering where the photos are coming from, because they've not had a problem either.

It all depends what shop you go into. The greengrocers still have full shelves, but the hypermarkets are bare:

 

[mjr]

The cashier said he could only sell me 3 bananas, because there is a shortage of vegetables.
I'm sure he misunderstood the banana situation, but I wasn't going to argue with the boy

Yep, one of our local supermarkets has gone similarly crazy:

Anyone want 3 cherry tomatoes? Unsurprisingly, they're the only ones left...

 

[presta]

I didn't notice any tomato rationing in Sainsburys this after noon.
Come to think of it, I didn't notice any tomatoes either.

 

[icowden]

I didn't notice any tomato rationing in Sainsburys this after noon.
Come to think of it, I didn't notice any tomatoes either.

M&S had some

 

[alicat]

I didn't notice any tomato rationing in Sainsburys this after noon.
Come to think of it, I didn't notice any tomatoes either.

No peppers rationing in Morrisons yet I too came away empty-handed.

 

[simongt]

Grapes are the BEST fruit period! Raspberries are normally ripe as are strawberries especially in the summer months (although I can't eat them anymore). Victoria plums, greengages, apricots can also be great at the right time of year.
In the winter, very little soft fruit will be great in the UK

Of course, you're harking back to the days when fruit ( and veg. ) had seasons which made things worth looking forwards to because they had TASTE - !

 

[rogerzilla]

Since Sainsbury's stopped giving you bags to put the loose stuff in, I imagine most people just buy the pre-packaged stuff.

 

[simongt]

I imagine most people just buy the pre-packaged stuff.

On this very point, it appears that Tesco are going to be closing down their fish, hot deli and butchery counters due to lack of demand.
Seems that too many folk are buying the prepacked equivalents now as they don't have time in their busy lives to ponder the best buy with the 'specialists'.

 

[mjr]

Seems that too many folk are buying the prepacked equivalents now as they don't have time in their busy lives to ponder the best buy with the 'specialists'.

Yes, that's an irony of hypermarkets: people go there trying to save time because they're busy, but all the time driving to their special purpose way-out locations, walking across the mahoosive car park sprawls and then around the stadium-sized shop adds up and means that they end up with even less time. So they go less often, try to do 17 weeks' shopping in each visit to make the driving and walking time competitive and justify the huge vehicle they've used, but that means they can't buy fresh food that won't freeze well, because it won't last until the next shop.

Then something key will be out of stock and they should probably just buy it next time they're passing a relevant small shop, but people have the mad idea local specialists are as expensive as the little "Morriburysco Metro Local Express Boutique" branches whose primary purpose is to make the main branches seem cheaper and get people hooked on products that they then drop to make people visit the main branches... so instead, people repeat the folly driving to another long walk around a different big box looking for missing items.

The delivery services should make more sense, but the online ordering interfaces are so awful that they take almost as long as walking around the damned store, the number of delivery drivers is over-optimised so you can either have a rubbish time soon or a better time later, they charge extra to put the items on delivery-order shelves instead of the main store shelves, and then there's the substitutions so you'll probably still be missing a key item and need to visit a shop anyway.

Feck that. I'm going to keep on riding my bike and shopping along the way.

More on this theme:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk

 

[Reynard]

On this very point, it appears that Tesco are going to be closing down their fish, hot deli and butchery counters due to lack of demand.
Seems that too many folk are buying the prepacked equivalents now as they don't have time in their busy lives to ponder the best buy with the 'specialists'.

The meat and fish counters in my local Tesco (Ely) closed last summer, the deli counter never reopened after Covid, and the hot deli counter closed for good last weekend. Now it's pre-packed or nothing. I'm gutted, because I used all the counters regularly.

Ely has one small independent butcher, no fishmonger and no greengrocer. The one bakery is godawful, and the twice-weekly market is about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Of the five supermarkets in town, the only one with a remaining counter service is Waitrose.

And they're building a whole raft of new houses at the edge of town. Again. Ely has doubled in size since I moved out this way.

 

[mjr]

Ely has one small independent butcher, no fishmonger and no greengrocer. The one bakery is godawful

Which of Boswells and Grain Culture Bake Shop has closed? It's been a while, so I'm not sure which is godawful now! And it's sad to hear the greengrocer on Lynn Road didn't survive the pandemic, but it was always a bit unusual.

I like the market, but I'm only there for coffee and cake, not trying to do real shopping. But yeah, in general: welcome to car-city, including this mistake.