Tesco’s are dropping the ball
Tesco’s are dropping the ball.
They are failing to realise in their rush to become a global superpower that their ‘bread and butter’ is groceries. Food. Decent food. Food that doesn’t go out of date before you get it home from the supermarket!
“Check the dates! Check the dates!”
That’s what you hear from shoppers when you are shopping at my local Tesco store. No doubt from people who have had the misfortune to buy something without realising it was on the verge of expiry. I know I have. Waaay too many times now.
“Mmmmm, yummy cakes.”
“Argh! Pffrrt! Yuk.”
Three WEEKS out of date! Sorry Mr Kipling but your cakes are shite when they are past the use by date.
Now at the time I put this down to the fact it was a new Tesco store and there had been a mix up with disposing of out of date stock during the move from the old one. Y’see? That’s customer loyalty at work. The goodwill was still there. It isn’t any longer, I can assure you of that!
Every time I go into that bloody shop (See? Now it’s ‘that bloody shop’) I have to check the dates on absolutely everything I buy - and I’m not alone - people are being forced to rifle through the grocery packaging just to be able to buy something that won’t go out of date the following day. Either that or they visit the store every day to get fresh-ish produce.
If I wanted to be a hunter-gatherer I would go live in the wilderness, catch small animals, eat berries and drink out of streams - I do not want to be forced into visiting Tesco’s every day!!
I visited that bloody shop only last week and had store staff remove an entire batch of lamb from the refrigerator - they didn’t take much convincing - it was green. Astonishingly enough, it was not beyond it’s sell-by-date. It was however, spoiled.
Now the only reason Tesco’s are able to supply goods such as electricals (your toastie-makers are crap, btw. Mine went to toastie-maker heaven in a fizz of fuse-blowing three weeks after I bought it) is because they have the people visiting their stores to buy groceries. Without the grocery buying there is no ‘other goods’ sales.
So what’s going wrong?
Simple. Delivery. They have it all wrong, in my opinion.
It’s my understanding that one store can reload a lorry with goods they haven’t sold and ship them to other stores the lorry may be delivering to later.
If this is indeed the delivery system all I can say is ‘talk about ripe for abuse!’
Let’s say Store ‘A’ has a batch of almost out of date meat they don’t want on their books as being over-ordered and spoiled. Store ‘A’ sticks it on the delivery lorry for the next store that has ordered it, for example, Store ‘C’. Store ‘C’ takes delivery of the meat they had ordered - except it isn’t what they ordered - store ‘A’ did a switch. Store ‘C’ is actually taking delivery of meat that is on the verge of expiry.
If this is the case, this would mean that all over the country, food is being shipped from store to store, with those stores further along the delivery chain getting food that is of a much lower standard.
Now let’s say for example that Tesco’s are delivering from a central warehouse in England (I don’t actually know) - this means that Tesco’s would be delivering lower quality food to it’s Scottish stores. Anyone want to throw the ‘racism’ word in yet?
Which brings me to my next point - Tesco’s are ALSO really irritating me.
1 comment January 28th, 2007
