The quality of fresh fruit & Veg

[Robbie]

Have PON members noticed that the quality of fresh fruit and veg, particularly from supermarkets, has gone down hill lately?

We've finish up buying the more expensive baking potatoes because ordinary sized potatoes have green & dark parts to them, which have to be cut off.

Bananas aren't good either, nor the fresh broccoli & cauliflower for example.

Had some fresh oranges delivered yesterday & all of them were greenish and some damaged. Had to reject them.

The fruit & veg seems to go off very quickly especially the bananas.

There must be a reason for this, either the weather or the suppliers, but as prices keep going up, the consumer isn't getting value for money at the moment.

[Fan of Big Tone]

@Robbie Who delivers your groceries? We use Tesco and I haven’t noticed any deterioration in the quality of our fresh fruit.

We used to shop in Lidl and I did notice their fruit and veg was below par and didn’t last very long before going off.

[Robbie]

@Fan of Big Tone

We get our deliveries from the local Tesco, & we have an Asda just within walking distance but the quality isn't much better.

Of course, when I go shopping myself I check the produce, myself before picking it, Sometimes it depends when you go.

I've found  Saturday & Monday early mornings is best for buying fresh produce, where I shop. There is plenty of fruit & veg on those days & specific times.

I suppose it depends on where your shop is, but I would have thought all Tesco's must have the same suopliers.

[Fan of Big Tone]

@Robbie I think our deliveries come from a main depot in Mansfield according to what a driver told us, I guess the quality depends on whose picking it but as I say we’ve had very few problems so far, on the odd occasion we’ve had a problem if we spot it while the driver is here we tell him and he refunds us, on other rare occasions we’ve emailed Tesco and they are very quick to give a refund.

We started having deliveries during lockdown and Tesco was the only place we could get delivery slots for, post covid we’ve just carried on having deliveries it’s much easier than physical shopping.

[Robbie]

We've been having deliveries for several years and never had a problem until recently. 

We have also being having damaged cans that you shouldn't accept. The driver does accept any damaged back, but it just seems like the problem has escalated recently.

[CliftonMagpie]

Most supermarkets are similar; it really depends on how well they store their products. Even then, getting home deliveries can feel like a gamble. You’re relying on the person selecting your shopping to choose well and not just get rid of items close to expiry. They’re supposed to pick fresh items with good dates, but sometimes the stock can be inconsistent, and staff may be in a rush.

My mum still tends to use local markets to get fresh fruit, although it could be worse. There are places that leave their fruit outside even when it’s warm, and flies or bugs can get to them.

[Robbie]

@CliftonMagpie

I agree that deliveries can be a bit of a gamble, however I always found them on the whole, very good & convenient when you don't have much time to go shopping.

They were a godsend when I worked full time, however, I do go to the Supermarket more and more now I'm retired.

[Wheelbarrow repair man]

I always enjoy Going to Iceland the Supermarket that is Not the Country. I Found out hiring a Long ship full of Viking Raiders quite expensive Now I've Retired.

Anyway  I enjoy Grapes  with my bowl of Bran Flakes in a Morning and the last few plastic containers of Grapes I've had despite them being well in Date I found them Sour and a light brown colouring comes onto the Grapes Skin. The Bananas are either to Ripe (Brown Skinned ) Or Unripe (Green Skinned) There seems to be No Happy Medium. Their Green Apples are decent and Oranges are Nice. Iceland's packet Iceberg lettuce and Celery get a Thumbs Up. If you have an Iceland Bonus Card and Shop there on a Tuesday, over Sixties get 10% off their Shopping Bill.

[liampie]

my mum tends to pick fruit up from the market and when she cant, she will go in stores to see them for herself. i have strict guidelines to follow and look out for when i do her weekly shops on sundays.

markets do tend to seem fresher and nicer, i dont know if supermarkets store fruit for longer or something.

[Piethagoram]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/30/brexit-border-rules-could-cut-shelf-life-of-fresh-food-from-eu-by-a-fifth-say-experts

Recent change of rules at Border points. 

People voted for this

Lidl and Aldi for the main shopping. My biggest gripe is the reduction in sizes of say salmon, gone from thick fillets to slim slithers now

 

[Fozzy]

Fruit and veg quality is fine from M&S, size can be an issue on occasions (I know how it feels ).

 

[Fan of Big Tone]

18 minutes ago, Fozzy said:

Fruit and veg quality is fine from M&S, size can be an issue on occasions (I know how it feels ).

 

Are you bragging or lamenting. 

[Fozzy]

10 hours ago, Fan of Big Tone said:

Are you bragging or lamenting. 

Definitely the latter at my age!

[Robbie]

16 hours ago, Piethagoram said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/30/brexit-border-rules-could-cut-shelf-life-of-fresh-food-from-eu-by-a-fifth-say-experts

Recent change of rules at Border points. 

People voted for this

Lidl and Aldi for the main shopping. My biggest gripe is the reduction in sizes of say salmon, gone from thick fillets to slim slithers now

 

Can we leave politics out of this for once?

This isn't a political thread. 

[BromPie]

In my opinion, the quality of fruit can be inconsistent. It doesn’t seem as good as it used to be. While some fruits are generally fine, others taste different and spoil faster.

[Chris]

My youngest daughter, Ava, loves eating fruit. She has an apple a day and two oranges. If you have strawberries or grapes, she'll be wanting those too. I don't eat that much fruit right now; I have certainly noticed a decline in the taste.

According to certain family members of mine, strawberries are naturally sour.

I like sweet tasting strawberries, which are full of flavour. The taste can be very hit-and-miss, but some recent ones really did taste horrible. I love Pineapple; it's a fruit that never changes or lets me down. Bananas are nice, but they seem to darken very quicker. I think preservatives being less used is the reason, but I have heard that some fruit can be very old by the time we get our hands on it. I don't like the idea of fruit cased in wax, then left for months to find itself on shelves.

Yet a programme I watched on ITV, showed this side to it. Including fruit grown in the UK, which makes me wonder why they can't just make sure it's picked, and distributed quicker. It's a good thing that preservatives, especially chemicals, are being less used, but there's no reason why we can't be more effective with some fruits.

[Piethagoram]

 

[cheeky~k8]

Fruit and veg in general has got worse in places like lidl and aldi but stayed the same in tesco and asda near us. I tend to shop at asda for delivery because its much cheaper than tesco for what you get in a total shop. Fruit and veg is similar priced in most places though.

[Piethagoram]

On 29/07/2024 at 12:37, Robbie said:

Can we leave politics out of this for once?

This isn't a political thread. 

Politics has everything to do with this...where the UK has to import food to feed its population.

Here is the professional trade body The Grocer article in full....

"Following months of media coverage of the previous government’s rollout of its post-Brexit border control strategy – including reports of border delays, food going to waste and poor conditions at Britain’s borders – it’s no surprise Labour had inherited a trade policy trainwreck.

But the full scale of it all came to public attention the past few days after analysis of a letter sent by the SPS Certification Working Group, which represents 30 trade bodies covering £100bn worth of the UK’s food supply, to new Defra secretary Steve Reed, showed just how chaotic the current state of affairs is.

The group warned of multiple challenges at the UK’s borders, where documentation and physical checks on EU goods began taking place earlier this year, as part of the Conservative government’s Border Target Operating Model (BTOM).

At Sevington – the government-funded facility processing goods entering Britain via Dover – industry is concerned about food safety and biosecurity breaches, claiming the border control post there, and its staff, is ill-equipped to handle certain temperature-controlled foods.

The SPS group also claimed imported food coming into the UK through the various Brexit border posts was being sent back to Europe to be tested due to a lack of laboratory capacity, which was causing further food waste and delivery delays.

Goods entering Britain going to EU

Among nearly 20 key issues highlighted by the industry, there were also complaints that the opening hours of most BCPs are too restricted, and that there are no 24/7 helplines for importers needing assistance.

The letter also revealed evidence of how much more of the Brexit brunt small businesses are carrying versus big companies. SMEs importing EU goods are paying up to 13 times more charges per tonne than their bigger counterparts, as The Grocer reported last week.

The main problem remains with the common user charge (CUC), a fixed fee on goods entering Britain via the port of Dover and the Eurotunnel. The CUC would be more widely accepted if it wasn’t for the fact it is disproportionately impacting small businesses, of which the UK’s food supply chain is largely made up of, and if the checks were actually taking place, which according to several traders are not – with border officials reportedly waving truckloads in without checking to avoid more queues and delays.

While all this goes on, there are border control posts across the country sitting empty right now due to poor infrastructure planning and a series of u-turns by government, which has pared back the scale of initially proposed checks on EU goods.

This includes a £2.3m border inspection facility at Poole, where only two checks have been conducted since its inauguration because of a series of policy shifts that saw a pare-back of originally proposed physical checks. There’s also the £25m border control post at Portsmouth International Port, which may end up torn down, as it is becoming an “untenable drain” on the city’s finances, as per the council chief.

The list of inaptitude-driven issues goes on and on. The Conservative government knew of them – indeed was warned by industry many of them would happen – and yet did next to nothing to prevent or fix them ahead of the general election.

What is the Tory Brexit legacy? 

It is not yet entirely clear how Keir Starmer’s government will address border trade challenges. Sure, there has been a pledge to rekindle relations with the EU and pursue a vet deal that would largely get rid of physical checks and exports paperwork. But would this solve the issue of the common user charge, which is currently being slapped on businesses regardless of whether their goods are checked or not?

If the CUC is binned, how will Defra pay back these publicly funded facilities? And what of all the other BCPs that are barely functioning as is, and of the people hired to work in them?

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Labour minister Reed and his counterpart, business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds, will certainly face mounting pressure from industry to address them urgently and prevent a full meltdown at Britain’s borders.

This also raises a rather fundamental question: what is the Tories’ Brexit legacy? This is certainly not what David Cameron envisioned when he called for the referendum. It is miles away from the path Theresa May would have liked things to go down. It’s also not even close to Boris Johnson’s no-deal, red tape-free Brexit dream. So the question might remain unanswered.

Now Labour must work closely with industry to clean up the Tory mess. And they need to do it quickly, before the damage becomes irreversible."

 

 

The £m's wasted in setting up Border Control Posts ( money that could have been spend for the NHS, the Police, education....... the perishability of food is not being helped one iota by the post Brexit consequences

These extra costs are borne by the UK consumer hidden in the price of food inflation. The poorest in UK society will suffer the worst. How is that acceptable?

 

 

[Fan of Big Tone]

I agree with @Robbie the original post was started as a non political post about fruit and veg, @Piethagoram maybe you could start a separate post in the political section to talk about that side of food production and distribution, then people who are interested can discuss it.

Back on topic I eat quite a bit of fruit and veg because it’s healthy and I like it, I agree with @cheeky~k8 the quality of fruit and veg from Lidl is very poor compared to our shopping from Tesco.

[Piethagoram]

@Fan of Big ToneThe disrupted supply chain is an inherent consequence of the original posts headline. The two go hand in hand. One can no longer fail to recognise that.

[Fan of Big Tone]

3 minutes ago, Piethagoram said:

@Fan of Big ToneThe disrupted supply chain is an inherent consequence of the original posts headline. The two go hand in hand. One can no longer fail to recognise that.

@Piethagoram I’m sure you are right and I’m not disagreeing on that point but as I say the post was started about fruit and veg not politics, I think people are put off by turning topics into political debates and it can cause friction which is a shame that’s why @Chris decided to start a political section.

[Piethagoram]

@Fan of Big ToneWhen the professional trade body of the retail association is clearly spelling out as interlinked. Such things cannot be separated

[Fan of Big Tone]

19 minutes ago, Piethagoram said:

@Fan of Big ToneWhen the professional trade body of the retail association is clearly spelling out as interlinked. Such things cannot be separated

@Piethagoram I’m not disputing what they say or what you say, I just think it would be better to talk politics elsewhere, maybe a new topic in politics section with a link to it in this section.

[Chris]

To be fair, topics like this could easily become political, which doesn't mean that it's gone off-topic but adapted. At the moment, I see no reason to close this topic but moving it into the politics section does make sense.

Now, I don't want this to upset anyone, I just want it to be recognised that the topic has evolved further.