Re: Groceries
 

:goodpost:

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Looking to relocate to Toronto (not sure of area within yet but will be fairly central). Was looking forward to more fresh salmon? or is this more area dependent?

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I am not sure about ON, but I am right on the coast and the stores here sell mostly thawed previously frozen salmon, I am sure if one went to a proper sea food market, might find more fresh stuff. Grocery stores don't tend to have the best selection of sea food in my area, not sure about other regions.

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Well in Toronto you can't just amble down to the harbour and buy salmon caught in the past few hours. There are salmon in Lake Ontario but I doubt you'd want to eat it. For Atlantic salmon it's about 1,000 miles to the coast and about 2,500 miles for Pacific Salmon, so fresh-not so much.

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St Lawrence market has some nice-looking fish, as do other neighbourhood markets/fishmongers.

Either way, you'll be umpteen (under-estimate) miles from the source of any commercial sales of "fresh" salmon catch.

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Wholesale Club was out of ducks for weeks, and this morning they have them, beautiful, plumper than usual, and all the way from Hungary! This duck says, "I just flew in from Hungary, and boy are my wings tired!" One to thaw and one in the freezing compartment. Bought a cucumber and green onion in anticipation of Peking Duck.

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One French, one English :lol:

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Two Hungarian ducks, one label in English and French and one label in Italian. :lol:

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Oh dear. :o:o:o

I just saw the other language and assumed French.

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Until I looked twice I assumed it was Hungarian. :lol:

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Anyone have any observations regarding checkout operators?

Why are male checkout staff in supermarkets generally so useless?

They're slow and can't pack sensibly if they even try it.

With one honourable exception - bloke at Sobeys where packing a bag seems to be an art form, so many there do it so well :thumbsup: - I'll join the longer queue at a woman's checkout rather than take a place where a bloke is working.

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Regardless of gender, I hate the ones who seem to have absolutely no idea what they are doing. When I put my groceries on the conveyer I'm a little anal about it and will place like with like so that all the dairy stuff is together, veg together, cans together, packets together (you get the picture I am sure). I always separate the meats and put any bakery items on last. You have no idea how many times I've had to ask, quite forcefully, that they don't put raw meat in with dairy items or cooked meats; had to request that they put the bread etc., in a separate bag and not in with tins; double bag glass jars (too many incidences of broken bags and smashed jars). Sigh.

Do they get training on basic food safety I wonder?

:banghead:

I'll go to an 'older' persons checkout rather than a youngsters, for this reason.

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At least they do pack !

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I must've spent 45 or 50 $, took a list but didn't get everything on it, got another Hungarian duck but this one is packaged different so may be from another farm, and it's a little longer so a bit more like the Canadian ones but still fairly heavy - under $13. Also got a bag of potstickers to replace the ones I'm going to finish today, more eggs and butter in case I want to try making Christmas cake and a family pack of lean ground beef from No Frills on sale, split in 4, wrapped and frozen.

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I'd rather they didn't, regardless of gender.

I'm fairly anal about packing, using a similar system to Siouxsie's mentioned above.

My daughter worked P-t in couple of supermarkets here: she was trained in safe food handling by one because she worked both the deli/ready-to-eat counter & checkout. At the other, not at all.

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Can she confirm whether the policy of leaving items at the front of the conveyor and picking up/scanning from behind so the the conveyor belt doesn't move until they want it to, thus making the next in line to wait for space to begin loading (takes breath) is an official policy or just the cashier's way of keeping the pressure off? ;)

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I'll ask. From what I remember, the cashiers are observed (via cctv), timed, asked/reprimanded about "delays".

I suspect it's the latter (cashier's trick to reduce pressure).

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Thx, this has reminded me to put my order in for a couple of tubs of goose fat for the Christmas roasties.

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Walmart are doing their silly price Turkeys again.

3-5kg = $10
5-7kg = $15
7+kg = $20

They didn't have many smaller ones (not unusual) so they priced up the 5-7s as $10 too and mother in law got two of those instead of the smaller ones.

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Some cashiers also scan based based on type off food, I know at my local store they will try and do all the meat at the same time to pack it in the same bag, try to keep cans together and so on.

I find it I load the belt by food type, they don't pick and choose from the belt to try and keep similar items together.

We hardly ever buy a lot at once, so I just use self check out normally, easier as I don't like standing there waiting for the cashier, and the machine doesn't try to do small talk, I even have various codes for produce memorized so I don't have to even look them up anymore.....:lol:

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If you're packing it, place it on the belt in the order in which you want to pack it. If the cashier is packing it place it on the belt in the order in which you'd like it packed. Almost all the cashiers I deal with are very nice and I'm rarely vexed by them.

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Our cart is usually way too full to be able to put stuff up in the order of packing.
Apart from the blokes and their slowness, I don't get irritated at them either.

It's just quite obvious that I can put, say, half a dozen packs of butter down first and instead of picking them up from the front causing the belt to move, allowing more stuff to be added, they'll leave the ones at the front as long as they can so it doesn't move.

I'd probably do the same :nod:

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A lot of times guys work elsewhere in the store most of the time and then get pulled to the front.... When I worked retail every so often I would get pulled to the front, and because I did it so infrequently, I had to think about every step, it just wasn't natural, those who did it daily, could do it automatic and not have to think what the next step/button was...lol

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Glad its not just me!

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If you see my post above, you will see that is exactly what I do. Unfortunately, some cashiers seem to ignore that and pick and choose what to put in each bag.

:(

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Yep, I too place it all in order on the belt and then they ignore it. No I don't want smelly toiletries in with the veg, yes I do want all the frozen and chilled together. No don't put that hot chicken on top of the chocolate! This just happened, I'm a little shaken but I'll be ok thank you.

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Apart from keeping frozen/ chilled stuff together, my only priority in packing is sturdy stuff at the bottom and fragile stuff at the top.

Where I shop the toiletries come in sealed packages.... :-/

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Grab as many plastic produce bags as it takes and slide meat, poultry, etc (anything that could leak/cross-contaminate) into them, the cashiers will pull the bags back far enough to scan and it keeps your grocery bags cleaner.

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They're still stinky.

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I don't buy toiletries at the grocery store normally, highest prices for those items most of the time, better to go elsewhere for those items.

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Not if you have to drive 85 km round trip when you've run out of laundry soap.

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True. We don't have that issue for toiletries. We do have that issue for shoes and other clothing especially for men, but the only choices in town is Mark's and Wal-Mart for mens shoes, so if your not into the styles (and poor quality in one case) you have to trek 60-70km into the city.

Women have more choice in town for those items.

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Oh dear.

Sobeys today, where packing is normally an art form.

The cashier was really slow with the person in front of us.

For my mother in law's turn she had all her small bottles - not heavy, not glass - at the front clearly put there to go in her bag together. She had three bags and not enough items to fill all three.

They were picked up in a way that left some there to prevent the belt moving.

A few more things were added from further back.

Then the cashier started removing some of the stuff he (yes, of course it was a he) had put in the bag and started re-doing it.

I had my stuff lined up for a small backpack with plenty of room for what I had.

Thin box on its side followed by carton of OJ and jars of mayo and pickled onions (Haywards of course) to hold it there, then frozen veg to go in the space next to it and two loaves of bread on top, not getting crushed.

I'm lifting MIL's bags onto cart so he starts before I can do it the logical way or intervene. Frozen stuff first, then jars, then box and no room for bread on top.

Part of his slowness with the person in front was looking over the stuff ready to scan. What for, if he's not seeing the obvious way to pack?

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‘The plunging loonie is juicing food costs’ - National | Globalnews.ca


"Supermarket prices rose 3.7 per cent last month compared to November 2014, led by rising costs for produce, which saw prices climb 8 per cent last month, and meat. Meat prices rose at a rate that was a tick shy of 4 per cent – still higher than headline inflation but well down from the double-digit jumps consumers were seeing earlier in the year."

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There are exceptions of course but I feel almost exempt from these increases. Perhaps I'm really a millionaire. :lol:

I can still buy joints of beef for as little as $3.99 lb. Bought one two days ago in Sobeys. Not a best before date approaching, just a flyer price. Even Prime Premium was down to $6.88 and my step daughter came back with two of those the other day.

The xmas Butterball Turkey "normally" well over $2 lb is now $1.49 several times a year whereas in 2005 it was $1.29 several times a year.

But even the Walmart ones around 99c cook really well if you're careful.

Pepsi can be had most weeks for the same $1-$1.25 for 2l as back in 2005. My whisky is about $36 instead of $33.

Eggs at Shoppers are still (mostly) $1.99 just as when we moved. Butter can still be had for the same price there.

So many things are available for the same reduced prices as years ago.

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:goodpost:

Agree, some items even less than way back when.

Its just that you need the time & the patience as well as have the variety or selection along with price matching of available competitive stores, otherwise, if there is only one [two tops] supermarkets in town, then 'its whatever price that place wants to charge is what you pay'

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Punnet of pears: 59p.

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when I was over in the UK a month ago, I found meat to be expensive (double the price) compared to what we buy here, veggies were better, fresher & cheaper, with canned items ridiculously cheap.

Asda, Aldi or Lidl shops - branded canned rice pudding 15p, can of mushy peas 15p, store brand canned soups 15p, loaf of slice bread in the 40 -50p range, end of day pies, BBQ chicken better than 50% off

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Good God you were back in the UK? You kept that quiet. What other impressions did you have?

Agree that meat is pricey here (especially compared to Bristol's last post). Typically pay 75p+ fir a canned soup or £1.50+ for a fresh soup (larger).

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While I do have the advantage of competing supermarkets - Sobeys and Superstore I don't think it takes much time and patience at all.

I don't do price matching. I'll compare but I won't go to a store and demand they let me have their item for price someone else is charging. I don't do coupons either.

We do have Walmart but there is very little in their grocery department that's cheaper than elsewhere, just one or two things that are quickly cancelled out by other things being more. When I'm looking for the best price, Walmart just doesn't feature.

I have the advantage of a Shoppers DM less than 10 minutes walk away, routinely the cheapest source for choc, coffee, eggs, pop, butter, Maple Leaf bacon, milk, bog paper, toiletries if you're not into brand loyalty, cereal, cookies.

But other than that, wherever one of us has to be for whatever reason we have the option of adding a grocery shop either on the same site or going on another 10 minutes. A 5 minute check on the flyers will confirm whether it's worth it.

If I was working somewhere around the city it would be much the same thing, just done on the way home from work instead.

So, yes, two competing stores are necessary. Or rather two alternatives. I'm sure competition helps, but I'm not sure they really compete. There doesn't seem to be a price war for example. More that they take it in turns to charge more for these things and less for those.