Supermarkets - the Megathread

AMKC

I have to say of my local Supermarket's Dunnes and Tesco have the best setup now with Lidl next and well Aldi are not very good. They have no sanitiser for washing the hands in or no organisation for people going in and out. My Dunnes just recently put screens up for there staff and Tesco and Tesco have it that its one in when one comes out now. They were a bit slow in the beginning Tesco but are now second to Dunnes who were first to have an out and an in entrance set up.

freshpopcorn

Another reason for all the shopping is people like to have nice food during this.
Some are used to eating out out and some aren’t but when this is going on they’ll have enough nice things in to sort of cheer them up during the days.
Instead of a few cans of beans and bag of rice.

Muahahaha

AMKC wrote: »

I have to say of my local Supermarket's Dunnes and Tesco have the best setup now with Lidl next and well Aldi are not very good. They have no sanitiser for washing the hands in or no organisation for people going in and out. My Dunnes just recently put screens up for there staff and Tesco and Tesco have it that its one in when one comes out now. They were a bit slow in the beginning Tesco but are now second to Dunnes who were first to have an out and an in entrance set up.

Yeah I found the response from Aldi wasnt great either and they about were 6 or 7 days behind what other supermarkets like Dunnes and SV were doing. They seem to have caught up now and when I was in earlier I saw a staff member going disinfecting all the doorways and even fire extinguishers, they had sanitiser and paper towels out too. But definitely at the start they didnt seem to take things seriously very quick which surprised me for Aldi.

They got a lot of complaints on this thread here last week

https://twitter.com/Aldi_Ireland/status/1241362808891232256

recyclebin

I was in Aldi on Saturday. The checkout staff are probably not getting as much protection as they need compared to SuperValu and Dunnes.

sharpish

Alun wrote: »

Tell me about it ... we bake our own bread in a breadmaker, and when all this started we thought we'd be fine with a reasonable stock of flour and yeast, but we're coming close to running out and can't find strong flour or yeast anywhere now.

I got the strong flour from Kells but running low on yeast if you find any keep us posted. The Kells people were really nice recommend a flour and it worked perfect worked out 23.5 euro for 16kg of flour.

smallgarden

Has anyone a summary of all the shops priority shopping times? Thanks

freshpopcorn

smallgarden wrote: »

Has anyone a summary of all the shops priority shopping times? Thanks

I think
Supervalu is 8am - 9am.
Tesco Monday, Wednesday and Friday before 9am.
Lidl 9an - 11am
Aldi 11am - 1pm
Dunnes 11am -1pm.

seanl77

smallgarden wrote: »

Has anyone a summary of all the shops priority shopping times? Thanks

I can only tell you tesco times
Monday
Wednesday
Friday all 8 to 9am elderly and carers

Tuesday and Thursday
8 to 9am Health care workers

Thephantomsmask

Alun wrote: »

Tell me about it ... we bake our own bread in a breadmaker, and when all this started we thought we'd be fine with a reasonable stock of flour and yeast, but we're coming close to running out and can't find strong flour or yeast anywhere now.

Holland & Barrett sell vital wheat gluten, it is 81% protein. 5g added to every ~120g of plain flour in a recipe will convert it to strong flour.

Shelflife

loyatemu wrote: »

Why is there no flour? Bought over €100 of groceries today in Tesco and the only 2 things they didn't have were flour and hand soap.

The latter I can understand, but what's the story with the flour, there was none of any variety. Have we all decided to become artisan bakers while on lockdown?

Plenty of flour, pasta, eggs toilet paper bread milk in the small shops.

People driving 35km round trips to queue for ages only to return to us and find we had everything they needed on their doorstep.

Support your local shops folks !

bertsmom

Working evening shift so I'm travelling to work at 3pm and home again around 3am. Housework and laundry and tea then bed around 5am. I'm finding it a little difficult to get to the shop to get groceries.
Very much a minor problem in the current situation and definitely not something that can be rectified as I think it's the most important thing that the elderly can shop in peace but I'm gonna come out of this both obese and malnourished from just eating tea and toast and penguin bars.
I need to get my alarm clock set and get motivated! I have all the essentials as I did buy a bit extra every week since it started in China but I could do with a top up.

freshpopcorn

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Their website for 'special buys' is greyed out after tomorrow so looks like not..

https://www.aldi.ie/c/specialbuys/dates/2020-03-29

It's back up now again.
Only 13th of April greyed out.(I think they always greyed out some dates before they updated it fully).
Lidl seems normal to.

Rjd2

Shelflife wrote: »

Plenty of flour, pasta, eggs toilet paper bread milk in the small shops.

People driving 35km round trips to queue for ages only to return to us and find we had everything they needed on their doorstep.

Support your local shops folks !

Agreed.

I go to tesco once a week and am limited as no car so can't carry that much, but I try to get most stuff there and then top up with the non essentials in another shop later in the week. It costs a few quid extra but tesco once a week is more than enough.

Snow Garden

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outrage-bins-pictured-filled-21773469

Shoppers who stockpiled food have been slammed after photos emerged online of out-of-date supermarket food dumped in bins.

SozBbz

Snow Garden wrote: »

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outrage-bins-pictured-filled-21773469

I just cannot understand some people.

I stocked up a little once this was on the horizon, but I was literally thinking of what I could buy so that the cupboards wouldn't run bare. I bought a little extra of the following;
-rice, pasta, egg noodles
-eggs
-yoghurt
-kitchen roll/toilet paper
-frozen veg (peppers, spinach etc)
-mince, chicken, prawns (freezer)
-tins of tomatoes, coconut milk, pineapple,
-beans, lentils and other pulses
-hardy veg that lasts ages like onions, carrots, celery etc (I don't pay attention to dates on items like this - if it looks good, its good.)
-salamis and hams with long dates

When I say extra, I mean like maybe 2x on what I'd normally have in the house. Not 10x and I didnt buy extra of anything extra of anything with a short shelf life because of course it would end up in the bin.

I'm glad I did it because I was ill almost 2 weeks ago and we've been isolating. We only needed friends to drop us in one additional shop which was mostly fresh items like milk, salad veg, fruit etc, which obviously made it nicer for us, but we could have survived on what we had. I could not get an online shopping date soon enough so we were lucky to have people to drop stuff in for us.

We didnt waste anything and everything we have now will get used. I'm finished my quarantine tomorrow and will be going to the supermarket to shop for my parents (70's) who will be needing a top up shop themselves at this rate.

Yester

Those bananas look grand.

MadYaker

Once again small shops are the place to go. I got flour and *whispers* hand sanitiser in a centra this morning along with everything else. My weekly shop done.

freshpopcorn

Yester wrote: »

Those bananas look grand.

It would make me question the reliability of the article.

There was an article a few days ago as well saying how our food waste bins were overflowing and it was similar to Christmas and it was because of greedy people stock pileing.

They never think that peoples food bins might be heavier because of the amount of time they are spending at home due to this no because that's not a cool headline.

SozBbz

Yester wrote: »

Those bananas look grand.

I'm sure they are.

Such headless chicken behaviour - "panic, must buy everything in sight! - oh, look, bananas!"


Gets home....."I don't actually like bananas".

The_Honeybadger

Yester wrote: »

Those bananas look grand.

Lol was thinking the same those bananas are perfect, although I have no doubt there is a lot of waste after all the ridiculous bulk buying. Anybody who bulk bought perishable items like meat is just completely stupid.

SozBbz

The_Honeybadger wrote: »

Lol was thinking the same those bananas are perfect, although I have no doubt there is a lot of waste after all the ridiculous bulk buying. Anybody who bulk bought perishable items like meat is just completely stupid.

Stupid and clearly don't understand how freezers work.

freshpopcorn

MadYaker wrote: »

Once again small shops are the place to go. I got flour and *whispers* hand sanitiser in a centra this morning along with everything else. My weekly shop done.

Was it s big Centra and what was on your shopping list?
I just say this because most of the centras and spars I know of they would only have about 60% of our weekly shop on a good day and several items would nearly be double the price.
Saying go to your local shop is great but not realistic for lots of people.

Plumbthedepths

Snow Garden wrote: »

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outrage-bins-pictured-filled-21773469

Selfish pr*cks.

SuperRabbit

I didn't realize anyone was stupid enough to stock up on stuff with expiration dates. Humans are so strange.

Shelflife

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Was it s big Centra and what was on your shopping list?
I just say this because our of most of the centras and spars I know of they would only have about 60% of our weekly shop on a good day and several items would nearly be double the price.
Saying go to your local shop is great but not realistic for lots of people.

Maybe in some of the city centre/forecourt high convenience stores, but many of the rural shops like my own have a good selection and are reasonably priced.

Satts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNWbfatRwg

Cash is King in southern Italy. Many workers struggling to prove they were working and having trouble trying to get emergency payments.
Groups organising to take food from shops.
If I were going to raid a shop I would be aiming a little higher than Lidl

Hopefully the emergency payments will stop this happening here.

BanditLuke

Snow Garden wrote: »

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outrage-bins-pictured-filled-21773469

You'd weep for humanity when you see this.

RobbingBandit

Loads of stock is extremely short-dated in fridges in Dunnes and Marks & Spencer two days max date from what I've seen if you aren't paying attention to dates you will find your ending up throwing a lot away unfortunately these are use by dates not best before food poisoning from beef products is a nasty experience wouldn't mind a few weeks ago the dates were upwards of 10 days in date for rustlers burgers, now it's way less.

freshpopcorn

Shelflife wrote: »

Maybe in some of the city centre/forecourt high convenience stores, but many of the rural shops like my own have a good selection and are reasonably priced.

My experience is with small local town stores.
All very expensive in my experience.
They might stock the odd special offer but that’s about it.
However I suppose it depends on what’s on your shopping list.

GetWithIt

The food in that Mirror article looks too good.

I'll just put myself in the position of a self-isolating journalist with a deadline, or perhaps a freelancer who only gets paid by the article. I need to get a story out but only have whatever is to hand and will need to McGyver something.

Right so, bananas, bread, chicken portions, bin. What can I possibly do with that ....

Nollog

Satts wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNWbfatRwg

Cash is King in southern Italy. Many workers struggling to prove they were working and having trouble trying to get emergency payments.
Groups organising to take food from shops.
If I were going to raid a shop I would be aiming a little higher than Lidl

Hopefully the emergency payments will stop this happening here.

If you were stealing from a shop, youd not get a better target.
The stock is sitting there by the pallet, no metal shelves on top and below the rustler burgers, jambons, toilet roll jamming them in there so you can't get them out without a big heave-ho.

The_Honeybadger

GetWithIt wrote: »

The food in that Mirror article looks too good.

I'll just put myself in the position of a self-isolating journalist with a deadline, or perhaps a freelancer who only gets paid by the article. I need to get a story out but only have whatever is to hand and will need to McGyver something.

Right so, bananas, bread, chicken portions, bin. What can I possibly do with that ....

That crossed my mind as well

SuperRabbit

Italy: Global pandemic, killing 10% of confirmed cases in your country: Raid Lidl for food
Ireland: Bit of snow: break Lidl's roof in with a JCB

zell12

Austria to make it compulsory to wear a face mask when shopping!

SuperRabbit

If there are enough masks it's a good idea. If I had a sewing machine I'd be making them. We know it's good for people who have it to wear masks to prevent it spreading, so if we are supposed to pretend we have it (since we all might) it's a good idea to wear them (but not if it means a shortage for people who definitely need them). The S. Korea government gave everyone one.

The numbers suggest a lot of people end up catching it at the supermarket , because infections in Italy and China kept going well after they had closed everything except supermarkets, China ended up closing supermarkets and delivering food to people. I'd say that was because so so so many people in the community already had it by the time lockdown came.

It's also crazy that thousands of people still have to go to the post office to collect their dole or pandemic payment, despite having an Irish bank account it could easily go into. That needs to change.


If you do wear a mask I'd suggest doing something to make it less scary for kiddies, draw smiley face or something on it

Muahahaha

Satts wrote: »

[

Cash is King in southern Italy. Many workers struggling to prove they were working and having trouble trying to get emergency payments.
Groups organising to take food from shops.
If I were going to raid a shop I would be aiming a little higher than Lidl

Hopefully the emergency payments will stop this happening here.

Read an article yesterday and things are really kicking off in Sicily, they reckon about 40% of the population there work cash in hand and have lost their jobs and cant get any government assistance as they're off the books. Politicians are saying the Mafia are looking to exploit the situation. They are going to distribute 400m worth of food vouchers to be but the problem is the poorest may not get them.

Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, warned that if something was not done to help the poor, the Mafia could exploit the situation.

“Discomfort and malaise are growing and we are recording worrying reports of protest and anger that is being exploited by criminals who want to destabilise the system,” he told told Sky News.

“The more time passes, the more resources are exhausted. The few savings people have are running out,” he added. “This tells us socio-economic issues will erupt.”

Pope Francis raised the alarm over the socioeconomic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic during a mass live-streamed on Saturday. “We begin to see people who are hungry, because they cannot work, they did not have a permanent job, and for many circumstances,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/italy-sets-aside-400m-for-food-vouchers-as-social-unrest-mounts

sheepsh4gger

Muahahaha wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/29/italy-sets-aside-400m-for-food-vouchers-as-social-unrest-mounts

They should have done this here also.

McDermotX

Popped into a mini-market, pseudo-Super Valu if you will.....no queue, spacing around the till area, perspex up for the workers etc

But......couple kids on their own (early teens max), not with each other, one of them coughing and sputtering, grabbing their whatnots (couldn't be arsed with baskets or course).
No parents to be found for these junior scrotes just let wander about.....no doubt adult scrote versions to begin with I'd imagine.
Navigate through that, only to be met by the 'story bud'-beggar outside looking for the next contribution for his fix.

Security guard on the door doing feck all of course, but sure why would he in any case ? Haven't spotted a Guard anywhere in the handful of times I've been out the last week or so.

Think I'll be frequenting the larger store for when essentials are needed.

Snow Garden

McDermotX wrote: »

Security guard on the door doing feck all of course, but sure why would he in any case ? Haven't spotted a Guard anywhere in the handful of times I've been out the last week or so.

I think all the Gardai were escorting the safety gear brought in from China yesterday.

RiseAbove4

Recommended online pharmacies that will deliver antihistamines?

I believe Boots have a ridiculous online waiting time and wait in delivery



Thanks

odyssey06

RiseAbove4 wrote: »

Recommended online pharmacies that will deliver antihistamines?
I believe Boots have a ridiculous online waiting time and wait in delivery

4 day delivery backlog here:
https://www.inishpharmacy.com/

SuperRabbit

Went to my local shop today.

They weren't practising social distancing.
They weren't limiting the number of people in the shop and it was absolutely packed when I left, no space to distance. (it was empty when i went in, that's why I thought it would be ok )
They didn't have a card reader and were asking everyone to pay in cash.
And the staff (presumably the owners) were elderly.

BanditLuke

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Went to my local shop today.

They weren't practising social distancing.
They weren't limiting the number of people in the shop and it was absolutely packed when I left, no space to distance. (it was empty when i went in, that's why I thought it would be ok )
They didn't have a card reader and were asking everyone to pay in cash.
And the staff (presumably the owners) were elderly.

If possible vote with your wallet and shop somewhere else.

BanditLuke

BanditLuke wrote: »

If possible vote with your wallet and shop somewhere else.

It was empty when they went in.

SuperRabbit

Yeah I won't go back, don't worry. I'm just sad and worried.. worried for the people working in the shop and any customers connected with vulnerable people

whiskeyman

Went to a large store earlier.
Seemed well managed, but worst offenders are staff... mostly young probably taken on board recently.

Walking right past and chatting away.

SuperRabbit

RiseAbove4 wrote: »

Recommended online pharmacies that will deliver antihistamines?

I believe Boots have a ridiculous online waiting time and wait in delivery



Thanks

Spooner's CareFirst pharmacy have a facebook ad saying they deliver if you are in that area... Check out your local pharmacies on facebook and see what they're saying

jackofalltrades

SuperRabbit wrote: »

The numbers suggest a lot of people end up catching it at the supermarket , because infections in Italy and China kept going well after they had closed everything except supermarkets, China ended up closing supermarkets and delivering food to people. I'd say that was because so so so many people in the community already had it by the time lockdown came.

It's also crazy that thousands of people still have to go to the post office to collect their dole or pandemic payment, despite having an Irish bank account it could easily go into. That needs to change.

You're right, it is crazy that with all the restrictions that we have, we still have people queuing up to go into shops and Post offices every day.

There needs to be a big push to incentivise online shopping.
Bring in big subsidies for companies who provide it.
At the very least you should be able to go to your local supermarket and have your shopping put in the boot of your car with no contact.

The_Honeybadger

jackofalltrades wrote: »

You're right, it is crazy that with all the restrictions that we have, we still have people queuing up to go into shops and Post offices every day.

There needs to be a big push to incentivise online shopping.
Bring in big subsidies for companies who provide it.
At the very least you should be able to go to your local supermarket and have your shopping put in the boot of your car with no contact.

The online shopping infrastructure that the supermarkets have was not designed for that kind of volume. Leaving aside home delivery it would be logistically impossible to pick everyone’s shopping and put it in the boot for them, that’s a niche service model that you can provide for a small number of customers at best.

All they can do is rigorously implement the recommended hygiene measures across the board and provide home delivery for elderly and vulnerable by collaborating with local community groups. If people would stop losing their minds every time Leo is on telly it would be a big help also.

Living Off The Splash

zell12 wrote: »

Austria to make it compulsory to wear a face mask when shopping!

This is only right. Same in China. The problem in Ireland is that there are no face masks available. Maybe the Government should have filled two planes full of protective gear and distributed 4 masks per month per household.