Washed Salad Bags and Bowls - Quality gone very poor in 2022

Danno

Anyone regularly purchase washed salad leaves in bags and bowls noticing how shyte the quality has gone this year? Always gone off well before the use-by date, leaves going black in the bag and any peppers, carrot or onion in some of them gone to mush and contents generally sweating in the packaging. Regardless of brand, supermarket or type of contents - quality is very poor across the board. Why?

bmc58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058263074/washed-salad-bags-and-bowls-quality-gone-very-poor-in-2022

Hard to expect quality when people are buying at bargain prices.You get what you pay for as the old saying goes.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119608989#Comment_119608989

I agree to a point, but this is regardless of brand, and by extension price!

Purple Mountain

Yea I've found that too. Brother and wife grow lettuce so try to get from them but sometimes they don't have a good crop so I buy.

There's nothing worse than the smell of lettuce 'sweating' in a bag 🤢

Definitely less shelf life of late.

elperello

Best buy is the trio lettuce with roots in Lidl €1.49.

Lollo Rosso, Lollo Biondo and Oak Leaf.

Lovely fresh tastes and you can plant the root in the garden or polytunnel and it will grow again with a bit of luck.

Space Dog

For what it's worth: I put the lettuce into tupperware straightaway, I found it helped a bit. When I leave it in the bag it's usually wilted, dried out or totally soggy by the time I want to use it.

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610820#Comment_119610820

Agreed - We've started doing that recently too. Even putting it into a bowl covered in tin foil is better than the bags

walterking

The lidl "family bowl" is bad. The cucumber seems to react with the peppers and go soggy very quickly.

On the other hand, the Aldi version has no cucumber and seems to last what is says on the label

Doodah7

Plastic bowl with a sheet of kitchen towel should see salads having a longer shelf life.

I do kitchen towel layers in tupperware (a layer per portion) - it doubles or trebles the shelf life on baby leaf spinach, and a big bag of that stuff takes a long time to get through when you're the only one that will eat it. Heat, damp and exposure to the air are the three factors that expedite salade malade.

Dial Hard

It's due to an ongoing global shortage of certain gases, I believe.

Those ready-to-eat salads are packaged with a specific mix of gases (depending on the leaf mix) designed to keep them fresh. The gas shortage means they're either not getting enough gas or not getting the right mix and it's affecting the shelf life.

Agree on the Lidl Salatrio recommendation above, it keeps for ages as long as it's kept watered.

anewme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058263074/washed-salad-bags-and-bowls-quality-gone-very-poor-in-2022

Yes I have noticed that, the leaves seem wet in the bags, even in the shop.

I've taken to making salads individually, buying packs of 2 of little gem lettuces which dont seem to go soggy as quick.

callaway92

Just on this one again

Bought the usual Rocket bag from Aldi on Monday - used Tuesday for the first time and closed bag as well as I could

On Wednesday the Rocket was soaking and absolutely stink so had to throw it out

Would make you wonder what they put into it to ‘preserve’ it

Xander10

Prefer to make up fresh. But for convenience last night, bought a salad bowl In M&S. Quality was good and yellow sticker made it more value for money. I think these have to pass the eye test. Stuff in bags, I would be expecting to use that day or the next and not expecting the quality to last much longer.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Stuff in general seems to have a shorter shelf life imo. It can feel like fruit (berries particularly) from Aldi can be on the turn by the time you get them home. We used to do the weekly shop on a Friday evening, but now we make a second trip on sunday for the fruit for the kids lunches as it seems to have no staying power at all.

Xander10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683405#Comment_119683405

The likes of blueberries are expensive. I buy them as topping for porridge. Always end up throwing half them out with mould. Switched to frozen version for better value.