I've come to the conclusion that one of the biggest ripoffs in the grocery department today are delicatessans. You can pay up to $2 per 100 grams (less than 1/4 lb.) for meat a lot of which isn't particularly healthy. By the same token you can buy a whole roast for under $10 and slice off lots of sandwich meat which is healthy. Should we start boycotting delicatessans?
Why bother with boycotts?
Don't go to them if you don't like them... there's no need for you to try and get some sort of "Movement" going over such a silly thing.
Hell Second Cup and Starbucks are pretty expensive and not all that healthy for you either.... let's start a boycott on those companies too while we're at it?
Oh wait.... the more simpler thing to do is just don't go to Starbucks, Second Cup, Tim Hortons or the Deli if you don't like them.
If you want to boycott something, at least have a valid argument as to why you wish to boycott them, such as major health concerns, corrupt business practices, ripping off of customers, etc.
Just because the cost of something is too high for you, doesn't mean it's too high for someone else.... and it depends on which type of meat you wish to have that determines the price of something. As mentioned before by others, buying a raw roast at the meat section is not the same as buying the roast meat at the deli, and due to the prep work for deli meat before you even see it on the shelves (Seasonings, Cooking it, Cutting it and Pre-Packaging it) obviously it'll cost more then the raw roast you'd only end up seasoning, cooking, cutting and perhaps packaging up yourself.
It's the same thing when you go to the produce section and compare the price between a whole pineapple and a package of pre-cut / pre-skinned pineapple..... or the price difference between pre-packaged salads and buying the lettuce, other veggies and dressing separately.
Shall we all boycott Produce sections too because of this?
No, because nobody is forcing you to buy these things or forcing you to shop at the deli or produce section.
Don't like the Deli meat?
Go to the Meat Section, purchase the meat yourself and do all the work yourself.
Don't like the Produce Section and its costs?
Go to the local Farmer's Market.
Sаbine;1290377 said:
I see. But what do they do with a meat product if it's still unsold? I just cannot believe they would simply discard it.
They do.
In the produce section, deli section, meat and seafood sections, anything that expired is tossed to the compost bin.
There are usually one or two big garbage bins in each department where customers can't see them easily and are usually dumped out two-three times daily.
Since expired meat loaded with bacteria won't be bought by anybody, won't be eaten by anybody, and won't be returned to the manufacturer to get their money back (they don't want it back) what logic would there be in keeping the rotting stuff around?
I used to work at Sobeys in a couple of stores in Nova Scotia between 1999-2002 when the whole compost/recycling/cardboard box crushing processes were all being revamped. At one time, there was two locations for everything.
• A big make-shift wooden box for all cardboard
• A big giant garbage door everything else went into
Around that time, they switched it to a big compressor machine to crush down boxes and the cardboard would be wrapped up and shipped off, a big door leading to a bin outside for plastics and the big giant garbage door for everything else.
Dunno what has changed since then though.
But I suspect you also have another question in regards to exactly how much meat/produce is wasted at grocery stores.
The answer is of course different depending on which company and which store you go to, but where I worked, we had to pre-determine the week before (sometimes only two days before an order) how well something is going to sell that week, what is on special, what holidays are coming, what shelf space will be used and/or available, and how long will the product last before expiring.
It's not something you can read in a book, it's something you learn through experience working at a particular store in a particular community. I learned from my seafood manager at the time, since he's been there for years and knew the routines.
You basically make an educated guess on how much you need between order dates and through my own experience, you learn that ordering not enough is better then ordering too much, because you can always order in more in a couple of days when it starts to get low, but if you order too much, you risk not all of it being sold, going to waste and the company losing out on money.... which eventually leads to you being fired.
I must say that after a couple of weeks, I had the system down and usually by the end of each day, I was only tossing out fish scraps like scales, skin, bones and heads, etc. (Which are a given known waste).... but when something needed to be tossed out due to expiring, there might be one fish.... maybe a couple of scallops.... but imo, the waste was very minimal.
Other departments operate in much the same fashion.
...... If you buy a dented can that's up to you but if you leave it at the till because you notice a dent when you get there - it's returned to the manufacturer.
Nope... it's tossed into the garbage... at least they were at Sobeys when I worked there. During my time working, we would go through boxes that had plenty of dented cans, but it depends on the size of the dent that would determine if they were allowed to be sold or not. If it's just a small indentation, they'd go on the shelf because they were safe, but if it's a large dent that bends the can, has potential of contamination issues through the dent, rusting, etc. then obviously they'd go to the bin as well.
But I never remember hearing of dented cans being returned to the manufacturer..... it's not the manufacturer who provides dented cans, they dent during transport or at the store from being banged around or dropped.
