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Picking Your Own Berries...At the Grocery Store???


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This is the 2nd time I've seen this in 2 months.  First at Publix and last week at Trader Joe's. 

 

People opening two or more of those little plastic pre-weighed boxes containing fruit (in one instance it was strawberries, the other was blueberries) in the produce section and going through them by hand, making their own little perfect basket.  And conceivably, leaving in their wake, a number of dismal berry baskets for the next customer, containing all their caste-offs. 

 

At first glance, this seems wrong to me.  Yes, I have had my share of throw-away berries from these baskets after getting them home, no matter how hard I peer into them from all angles (especially from and at the bottom of said containers).  But it never dawned on me to actually open a few berry containers and 'pick my own.'  

 

Is this an accepted practice these days?  

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no, not acceptable. But basic sense and manners seem to be absent for many people.

Those clamshell packages are weighed and sort of sealed (snap close, but it's a concept) and that's just wrong.

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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Its despicable!

 

I saw some old lady redistributing apricots in the preweighed bags.

 

I hate when people put their hands on the berries and eat them too. I dont know where their hands have been. its probably why some berries form mould.

I, being the loud mouth activist I am WILL say something when I see someone doing it too. they need to seal the bags and boxes.

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Wawa Sizzli FTW!

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the only "picking" I do is the giant plastic bags (now they use a ziploc type) with grapes - I'll pull a small bunch out since I don't need 3 lbs of grapes. Same goes for cherries. But I do have a bit of squeamishness after seeing some of the hands that have been in those bags (will try to find a bag at the back that looks less likely to have been "violated"). 

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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I saw a woman doing this with oranges at Costco last year. Since in my ren faire cooking I serve orange slices with the peel still on them I found watching it disturbing. It just is wrong. I have taken a box back to Costco because of the number of rotten oranges in it. Their return policy is the best I have encountered. I bought a Seiko watch that I need to return this week. It stops keeping time when I swap it out to wear a different watch.

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

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the only "picking" I do is the giant plastic bags (now they use a ziploc type) with grapes - I'll pull a small bunch out since I don't need 3 lbs of grapes. Same goes for cherries. But I do have a bit of squeamishness after seeing some of the hands that have been in those bags (will try to find a bag at the back that looks less likely to have been "violated"). 

 

I didn't mention it in my OP, but at Trader Joe's, it was the shopper's child who was doing most of the strawberry re-arrangement.  The kid was maybe 4 years old??, small enough to sit in the front of her cart.  

 

When we lived in Mexico, everyone (certainly not just expats) sanitized their own produce.  I was told that in MX neither the growers, the wholesalers, nor the retailers did any sort of washing of their produce, and of course, local growing conditions may not meet US/CDN standards.  Often produce went straight from farm to consumer as I often bought produce direct from farmers off of their pickup truck beds.  

 

The produce concentrate we used there was Microdyne; it literally was sold in every produce section of every market and also in small neighborhood tiendas; a few of our friends used a few drops of chlorine bleach instead of the Microdyne.  But everyone I knew, foreign or native, used a sanitizer of some sort.

 

I should add that I contracted e-Coli twice while living in Mexico; the first time I almost died (no joke).  Each time from undercooked ground meat (even my MXN doctor was appalled: "Senora, I am Mexican and I do not eat rare hamburgesas").  I should also add that my husband contracted shigella (3rd world dysentery) from a posh restaurant in DC-Metro (he was so sick for so long before we read about a restaurant we had eaten at being closed by the Fairfax County Health Department!).   He also picked up a few mild stomach bugs in MX, but not anything life-threatening.

 

It could be we are a bit more sensitive to bacteria than others.  

 

I have never used any sort of a produce sanitizer in the US, but am now reconsidering doing so.  

 

If you use one, what do you use?  I googled Microdyn and it is not readily available in the US, based on my searches. 

Edited by gulfporter (log)
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I think this is really unacceptable. However I understand the impulse.  I bought a quart of apricots today at a farm stand - when I got them home the entire bottom layer was rotten. Of the 5 peaches I bought (at a different farm stand, yesterday) 2 had large bruises that did not show up in the basket. This seems to me to be happening more and more often -and not just at supermarkets. I do not grow fruit (except raspberries) and I usually buy from local farm stands but it seems that even there I cannot be sure of getting good quality fruit.

Elaina

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero

But the library must contain cookbooks. Elaina

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I personally do not see anything wrong with it. It's a pain for the people following, but not immoral or illegal. It's up to the store to set and enforce the rules.

I do shop at a farm stand that has signs prohibiting this practice though. I respect the signs and would expect others to do so as well. But the farm stand makes sure the quality is uniformly good and the weights of the cartons/baskets are as stated.

That being said, when I was much younger, I worked in and managed several grocery store produce departments. Like many things, the margins were thin and bonuses (or employment!) depended on how good the margins were and how they compared to other stores. People tend not to buy produce that is bruised or ugly. Yet to throw it away is wasteful (if it is edible) and counts against the margin.

The only practical way to respond is to package it. Put slightly bruised apples or bananas at the bottom of a bag. Shrink wrap zucchini with the label strategically placed over a blemish. Use old or partially spoiled veggies and fruits for the crudités platters or fruit plates used for parties - the bad or spoiled parts cut off.

This was perfectly fine produce being used, although some of those I worked with were more aggressive than others. I never saw anyone intentionally use rotten fruit. But this practice uses fruits and veggies that are on the edge, so to speak. So maybe something turns rotten before being noticed. Or maybe the buyer thinks the produce can sit for a few days.

A funny thing: I worked produce long enough that I can smell that something is rotten. The give away is that it often smells too good. Potatoes, onions, strawberries, citrus, and others smell fantastic as they rot. A bag of potatoes, for instance, has a very potato-ey smell. Oranges smell super orange-y.

Anyway, my number one rule in grocery stores is to never buy anything else ackaged for convenience if I can avoid it. Nothing shrink wrapped. No sliced watermelon or cantaloupe. No partially shucked corn in packages. No brown bags of peaches, apples, or bananas. Blueberries are a bit problematic, but I've never had an issue with the plastic see-through cartons.

And, just to add, the customer before you might separate the dubious berries from the "good" ones in front of you. But that "untouched" carton might have come from several half-molded ones mixed in the back room by hands of dubious cleanliness. That is, the store itself might be doing what seems so objectionable when done by the customer.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to say that in a large produce department I worked at, one guy's job was to save the produce with some hope of rescue we brought to him, and he'd trim, package, or otherwise save stuff that couldn't be sold. He was considered a master.

Edited by Ttogull (log)
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Putting the bad stuff on the bottom is fraud, pure and simple; and it happens way too often.

 

If a store wants to sell ugly veg, price it as such and make it plain what they are selling.

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Yes, cheating on weight (adding to a preweighed box) and substituting qualities (nonorganic vs. organic) would be stealing. But swapping bad for good of approximately equal amount is not. It's this last thing I am talking about.

As someone working in the produce department, I would have appreciated someone just setting the bad produce to the side or leaving the other carton's lid up. But not everyone would think of that.

And you are funny if you think my germs hands are the worst thing to touch your produce. An orange that falls to the floor goes back on the shelf. I'd bet very few people wash their oranges before peeling them and subsequently eating the inside with their hands. Somebody drops a carton of strawberries - there's no way they go in the trash if they are ok. Those containers have holes, and people sneeze and cough all the time in the produce department. Food is dirty!

I forgot to mention that stores know the trick of people grabbing the stuff in the back or the bottom. Often, then, some of the older stuff gets put in the back and the new stuff in the middle. The bread companies know this too and sometimes stock their bread accordingly. Sometimes too the new stuff is actually older because it might come from a different vendor or warehouse.

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