General supermarket discussion

[blackcat20]

This is the category I'm in. I have halved my spend at Woolworths. Often scan the card and the only emails I receive are from BigW.
I have checked my preferences with Woolworths rewards and they are the same as they always were.

We moved our fruit and veg spend away from the at the start of the year. After our third experience with off meat, we're moving that elsewhere too, so Woolies will only be for staple items now.

 

[andye]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

We moved our fruit and veg spend away from the at the start of the year. After our third experience with off meat, we're moving that elsewhere too, so Woolies will only be for staple items now.

We have had some problems with chicken from Coles and Aldi but not WW to date
Managed to do a big meat stock up at Craig Cooks using a 25% off Entertainment Book voucher at the weekend-markedly better quality than supermarket meat

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

We have had some problems with chicken from Coles and Aldi but not WW to date
Managed to do a big meat stock up at Craig Cooks using a 25% off Entertainment Book voucher at the weekend-markedly better quality than supermarket meat

I've had off pork, beef mince and now lamb chops from WW. All within a day or two of purchase and stored correctly. Our local Coles (2 of them) have far better quality meat.

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I've had off pork, beef mince and now lamb chops from WW. All within a day or two of purchase and stored correctly. Our local Coles (2 of them) have far better quality meat.

Woolworths has a centralised meat packing facility for all its stores in VIC & SA in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne which opened late last year which has increased the duration of the supply chain and reduced product quality. I suspect this move is beginning to backfire on them.

 

[Cossie]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Same here in the Canberra region, our local woolies used to have butchers on site, now it's done elsewhere, I've now had 2 instances of finding the package of meat being partly frozen when I've got it home and no it wasn't anything to do with the current weather conditions!

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Woolworths has a centralised meat packing facility for all its stores in VIC & SA in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne which opened late last year which has increased the duration of the supply chain and reduced product quality. I suspect this move is beginning to backfire on them.

We still have a butcher on site though.

 

[exceladdict]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I've had off pork, beef mince and now lamb chops from WW. All within a day or two of purchase and stored correctly. Our local Coles (2 of them) have far better quality meat.

I've personally found both fruit and veg from woolworths online would spoil far before the "best before" date. I stopped using online shopping for this reason.

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I've personally found both fruit and veg from woolworths online would spoil far before the "best before" date. I stopped using online shopping for this reason.

The fruit and veg in store is the same.

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

We still have a butcher on site though.

Yes, in the larger stores ( or some smaller affluent stores) they have installed meat counters in the past 18 months where a limited range of random weight meat can be purchased from the counter.

 

[RAM]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I've personally found both fruit and veg from woolworths online would spoil far before the "best before" date. I stopped using online shopping for this reason.

It often has to do with the 'stocking' of it.

I have asked to see the store manager literally dozens and dozens of times over the last few decades when I observe the fruit being thrown from the box onto the displays.

Sure, some customers go through the displays and throw the F or V around (causing bruising/spoilage to begin but not be obvious at first glance) but too often I'll see a sub-30s male staffer pick up an entire box of apples/pears/tomatoes and in one move heave it off the trolley and up end it from a height for the contents to fall out similar to a dump truck unloading at a tip.

The F&V then tumbles down, impacting against itself before hitting the nice solid display or existing stock below.

With meat - the spoilage often has a lot to do with the speed of moving it from the loading dock to the cool rooms. Also just how in-the-sun the loading dock is.

Sometimes there may be 3 or 4 prime-mover loads of stock arrive (across departments) within 10-20 minutes and literally there is a jam of all the pallets/cages that cannot be shifted until the evening/night stocking begins. So if the meat is sitting in the sun for a few hours on a hot day....

 

[blackcat20]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Yes, in the larger stores ( or some smaller affluent stores) they have installed meat counters in the past 18 months where a limited range of random weight meat can be purchased from the counter.

Yeah ours has that. They moved the premium meat behind glass and bumped the prices up. So the nice eye fillet steak went from $42 to $46 behind glass and the stuff left on the shelf at $42 was a much lesser quality than previously.

 

[ellen10]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Did a shop today at my local Woollies and the queues at the checkouts, manned or self serve were terrible.
I had the misfortune of forgetting something that I can only get at Woolworths and so I had to go back in. So I thought I would use the self serve checkout but the queue was full of people with large trolleys scanning themselves. So frustrating.

 

[UP4014]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I just received a survey about my local store including the very subject of queues. THey asked for a comment and I bet they didn't like my answer.

 

[whatmeworry]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

We moved our fruit and veg spend away from the at the start of the year. After our third experience with off meat, we're moving that elsewhere too, so Woolies will only be for staple items now.

I am sure Himeno can give us an answer on this topic.

Did a shop today at my local Woollies and the queues at the checkouts, manned or self serve were terrible.
I had the misfortune of forgetting something that I can only get at Woolworths and so I had to go back in. So I thought I would use the self serve checkout but the queue was full of people with large trolleys scanning themselves. So frustrating.

I think they need a no trolleys rule at the self serve checkouts and perhaps a maximum item number.

Also because of self serve checkouts, I think they have reduced check out self resulting in longer queues overall.

 

[ellen10]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I think they need a no trolleys rule at the self serve checkouts and perhaps a maximum item number.

Also because of self serve checkouts, I think they have reduced check out self resulting in longer queues overall.[/QUOTE]

Yes my husband refuses to use the self service checkouts for that reason. Today out of 10 staffed checkouts only 3 were open and the queues huge. That is why I think the people with trolleys full used the self serve checkouts but it definitely takes them longer to process the items.

 

[UP4014]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Yes my husband refuses to use the self service checkouts for that reason. Today out of 10 staffed checkouts only 3 were open and the queues huge. That is why I think the people with trolleys full used the self serve checkouts but it definitely takes them longer to process the items.

I too refuse to use a self serve check out.

Would rather go elsewhere.

 

[Himeno]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Did a shop today at my local Woollies and the queues at the checkouts, manned or self serve were terrible.
I had the misfortune of forgetting something that I can only get at Woolworths and so I had to go back in. So I thought I would use the self serve checkout but the queue was full of people with large trolleys scanning themselves. So frustrating.

So much for "Customer Week". This week, they are running "Customer Week" (they do it once every 4-5 months), where each day the store focuses on one of the 7 VOC measures. Today was about ticketing, Queue wait times is on Friday, but they aren't meant to let the other 6 measures fall while they spend the day focusing on one...


The meat thing...
A few years ago, Woolworths started a joint venture with Hilton Food Group out of the UK. Hilton Food Group is a meat production company with a number of centralized packing plants in Europe. The join venture with Woolworths started with a plant in Perth. There is also one in Brisbane. The newest, which was built in 2014 and opened mid 2015, is in Truganina just outside Melbourne. This plant supplies all stores in Victoria, South Australia and 36 stores in Canberra/Southern NSW.
As part of the changes when supply from this plant started, they stopped all in store production, got rid of most of the trade butchers, installed meat serverys in most of the former production stores and screwed over most of the other staff in the meat departments. The HR process used for these changes was legally questionable (eg, they claimed all positions in meat departments were redundant, when many of them were not, paid out redundancy packages, then turned around and advertised trade butcher positions). The production stores used to have 3-6 trade butchers depending on the department/store size. The new serverys need 2 full time and 1 part time butcher. They aimed to reduce butchers by about 40%. 80% left and now they are having a very hard time filling those "new" positions.

Meat used to come from the local DC and/or contracted supplier. eg, the case ready stores in NSW/ACT got lamb/beef/pork cuts and some mince from Beak and Johnson in Sydney, chicken and some mince from Wodonga RDC and the rest (sausages, burgers, petfood, etc) from Sydney RDC. Now everything that came from B&J and some of what came from Sydney RDC comes from this plant in Truganina and spends an extra day in transport then it used to.
When it was supplied from B&J, the order was sent at 4am, they made it that day and it was in store the next morning.
Now, it is ordered and made on day 1, sent to Wodonga RDC for day 2 where it is paired with the next chilled load to each store, and arrives at the store the morning of day 3.

Refrigerated products are allowed to be out of refrigeration for 30 minutes. ie, they have 30 minutes to get it off the truck and into a cool room. This can get problematic given the state of the dock, time of year and when the truck arrives.

Some produce lines (like onions) are meant to be "tumbled filled", where they tumble it out of the box onto the upper part of the display table. It sounds like that store was either doing it from much higher then they are meant to, or were tumble filling lines are are not meant to be.

 

[love_the_life]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

Same here in the Canberra region, our local woolies used to have butchers on site, now it's done elsewhere, I've now had 2 instances of finding the package of meat being partly frozen when I've got it home and no it wasn't anything to do with the current weather conditions!

I sometimes go to the Mawson WW where there is a dedicated meat counter and a butcher (well I assume he is as I have seen him boning out joints etc). All the meat I have had from the counter has been excellent. There is a butcher at Griffith who is quite good but very expensive as it is rather boutique.

 

[Renato1]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I have never, ever had a problem with Woolworth's and Coles meats - and I like picking up the bargains near the use-by-date.

I do have a problem with Woolworths mortadella. Whereas when I buy it at Coles or IGA or a deli, it lasts up to seven days, from various Woolworths stores it was off next day or the day after (and it's the same brand). Unlike Coles and Ritchies IGA, Woolworths usually don't have it on display but keep it in the fridge instead. This means that they sell less of it, but they cut the skin off the front part of it and put Glad wrap over the skinless area. This works fine if one is selling a lot of it, but the mortadella goes off if the exposed skinless area isn't sliced quickly.

So I complained and got my money back several times. Now i just don't bother buying it from them.

I like Ritchies IGA meats, and have never had a problem at one store which I visit two thirds of the time. But I have had problems with meat bought near the use-by date at the other. And the other night, beef snitzel bought with plenty of time on the use-by-date from the latter store and cooked a day before the use-by-date, tasted like it was about to turn. So I rang the manager and asked what was wrong with his fridges. He replied that the fridges' temperatures are measured three times a day, so they couldn't be the problem. So we pondered possibilities as to what may have gone wrong taking meat to and from the in-store butcher, and he undertook to go away and investigate.
Regards,
Renato

 

[Himeno]

Re: Targeted Woolworths Rewards offers. How to get more Woolworths dollars.

I sometimes go to the Mawson WW where there is a dedicated meat counter and a butcher (well I assume he is as I have seen him boning out joints etc). All the meat I have had from the counter has been excellent. There is a butcher at Griffith who is quite good but very expensive as it is rather boutique.

There are 17 WW stores in Canberra (well 18 now with Franklin open). 12 used to have production meat departments. 9 of those 12 were to have the butcher shops with the other 3 to go case ready only, until they changed their mind about Kippax and put the counter in there as well (after they had gotten rid of all the butchers as Kippax wasn't going to have them anymore).