Home delivery and best before dates

Lastblackdog

Just a question for the folks who use home delivery. When you order online do you ever get stuff that is either out of date or very short dated?

The reason I ask is that my local Tesco (Maynooth) frequently has products that are either out of date or out of date that day. Many times I have been caught out. So much so that I try to remember to check everything but do lapse from time to time.

In fact, I have brought the out of date items to the notice of the people on the customer service desk only to find, when back in the store later that day, that the same, out of date items, were still on sale.

It is so bad that it is probably the single biggest concern about using home delivery.

L1011

Nearly always the shortest dated stuff going. Someone on here claimed to be a picker and claimed that the scanner doesn't let them pick short dated stuff but that's bollox - the barcode does not contain that info.

ThisRegard

In fairness you do usually get long dated stuff. When there's a short date there's a note on the delivery docket the driver gives you and you have the option of returning it with him and being refunded. It's automated so I'm surprised that you receive any stuff that's out of date, ie use by rather than best before.

Lastblackdog

ThisRegard wrote: »

In fairness you do usually get long dated stuff. When there's a short date there's a note on the delivery docket the driver gives you and you have the option of returning it with him and being refunded. It's automated so I'm surprised that you receive any stuff that's out of date, ie use by rather than best before.

Note: I haven't ever used the home delivery service. My experience is confined to what it on the shelf. Frequently out of date or short dated.

zoeybelle

I order frequently from Tesco and really rely on the service and my current local store is very hit and miss with fresh items. (I've moved a few times over the years so had different stores) If there's an issue with your order that u didn't notice ring the customer service number on your receipt and they have always been really helpful with sorting it out.

athtrasna

I got bread on august 9th with a date of August 8th even though on the Tesco site it was listed as guaranteed 5 days. They refunded the money quickly but it was inconvenient as I needed to then go and buy bread.

endofrainbow

my delivery comes from Maynooth and there's not a delivery goes by that products are 1/2 days away from best before. once time I got 5 litres of milk 3 were 2 days out of date, 1 was that day and the other was the next day. Personally I think it's lazy pickers but Customer Service in Cardiff are pretty much on the ball with regard to refunds.

I've had to chase Maynooth lots of time because they don't pass the returned goods info back to Cardiff.

JimsAlterEgo

endofrainbow wrote: »

my delivery comes from Maynooth and there's not a delivery goes by that products are 1/2 days away from best before. once time I got 5 litres of milk 3 were 2 days out of date, 1 was that day and the other was the next day. Personally I think it's lazy pickers but Customer Service in Cardiff are pretty much on the ball with regard to refunds.

I've had to chase Maynooth lots of time because they don't pass the returned goods info back to Cardiff.

just put a note on your order saying you want dairy to be X days in date, and fruit to be Y date. With fruit and veg some people want short dated in some cases not unripe ones.

coylemj

If the in-store customers (as I do) deliberately pick the stock with the longest date, it stands to reason that the people picking stuff for home delivery will be instructed to pick stock with the shortest date. In the days when the stock was all behind a counter, that's how the grocer did it as as well - the new stock was put at the back of the shelf and the old stock moved to the front so that it was sold first.

I appreciate that you have a gripe if you get out of date merchandise but if you want long dated food, I'm afraid you'll have to go to the store yourself.

Reputable Rog

My understanding is that Tesco deliveries tend to be from a single primary store in an area and not the most local store in your area.
For instance in the Cork area, all of Cork is served from Wilton for home deliveries. You may have noticed that there is often a much wider range of products available online than in your local Tesco store.

foggy_lad

I noticed that milk which has a 10-12day life never has more than 7days when bought online. There are also other items with short dates which are not listed on the receipt bit customer care usually refund for those. Op if the situation does not improve you should take your time with your next delivery and check everything carefully for dates and quality. Return anything you don't like to the driver who should take it off your shopping immediately using the handheld scanner he has. It may take an hour or more but the shop will be notified by the driver because other deliveries will be late.

If they want us to accept their sloppy seconds they should be reducing prices accordingly.

Cabaal

foggy_lad wrote: »

If they want us to accept their sloppy seconds they should be reducing prices accordingly.

Utter nonsense,
If you want the best dates then go do the shopping yourself, that way you can pick the items from the back on the shelf.

Items are almost packed on the shelf's with the stock with the shortest date at the front and longest at the back. Its like this in every shop (or atleast any shop who look after stock control in a decent manner).

The staff are going to take the stock from the front, many customer's even do this without thinking. If you want the stock from the back then do the shopping yourself, the shop are doing nothing wrong.

Turtle_

Cabaal wrote: »

The staff are going to take the stock from the front, many customer's even do this without thinking. If you want the stock from the back then do the shopping yourself, the shop are doing nothing wrong.

Except that tesco are notorious for leaving out of date products on the shelf, or stuff due to go off that day. Every other supermarket moves that latter stuff to a reductions area and removes the out of date stock completely. I've never seen any shop as bad for short dated food as tesco.

The whole idea behind online shopping is to save you a trip to the shops. It's a reasonable expectation that what you receive will be fit for purpose - ie not already out of date and not just about to go out of date. That your weekly shop shouldn't have to be chucked a day later... Stop making excuses for tescos poor ordering and stock management.

Cabaal

Turtle_ wrote: »

Except that tesco are notorious for leaving out of date products on the shelf, or stuff due to go off that day.
.

Again, I've seen this in other shops too,
Supervalue, Superquinn (before it was bought) all make these error's, its a sign of bad stock control in a store.

If there's an issue raise it with the shop,

I'm not making excuses, I'm merely pointing out that if a person does their weekly shop and only takes from the front then they'll get shorter dates, its really that simple. It doesn't mean the item will be out of date on the day but of course it will be out of date sooner then stock from the back. If you want the very best date on your products then you can make the personal decision to pick from the back when shopping yourself.

Turtle_

Cabaal wrote: »

Again, I've seen this in other shops too,
Supervalue, Superquinn (before it was bought) all make these error's, its a sign of bad stock control in a store.

Yes, but I've never across multiple stores of the various brands seen any that are remotely as bad as tesco. Seems to be supported by the experience of others in this thread.

dashcamdanny

foggy_lad wrote: »

I noticed that milk which has a 10-12day life never has more than 7days when bought online. There are also other items with short dates which are not listed on the receipt bit customer care usually refund for those. Op if the situation does not improve you should take your time with your next delivery and check everything carefully for dates and quality. Return anything you don't like to the driver who should take it off your shopping immediately using the handheld scanner he has. It may take an hour or more but the shop will be notified by the driver because other deliveries will be late.

If they want us to accept their sloppy seconds they should be reducing prices accordingly.

The driver will just leave. LOL

Why should he be late home from work because of a picker or a nutter customer.

Not to mention the other van load of customers who are going to be sadly disappointed they did not get there shopping on time.

L1011

dashcamdanny wrote: »

The driver will just leave. LOL

Why should he be late home from work because of a picker or a nutter customer.

Not to mention the other van load of customers who are going to be sadly disappointed they did not get there shopping on time.

Tescos problem. If the pickers weren't taking the oldest product (likely under direction) it wouldn't be a problem.

dotcomedy

I drive for them.

If I have a customer like that, which is very rare, we will check on my manifest how much time I can spare to deal with it, after that we are gone. It not fair on the rest of my customers..


Take it up with customer service. Unless you want an all out row in your kitchen in front of your family with a stranger in a high vis,

If im in a hurry to get home, it will be a quick bye bye.

Thankfully 99.9 of people are sane and friendly.

coylemj

L1011 wrote: »

Tescos problem. If the pickers weren't taking the oldest product (likely under direction) it wouldn't be a problem.

Stock rotation as practised in the retail trade says that when the retailer makes the decision, you sell the oldest products first. The way this is being portrayed as some kind of sharp practice is nonsense, it's the way it has always been in retail.

Even stock with a relatively long shelf life like Tayto crisps comes with stock codes printed on the carton so that the retailer can rotate the stock by ensuring that the old cartons are shifted first.

It makes no sense for a retailer to pick the newest stock to send out with home deliveries. If you want the freshest stuff, go to the store and pick it yourself.

L1011

coylemj wrote: »

Stock rotation as practised in the retail trade says that when the retailer makes the decision, you sell the oldest products first. The way this is being portrayed as some kind of sharp practice is nonsense, it's the way it has always been in retail.

Even stock with a relatively long shelf life like Tayto crisps comes with stock codes printed on the carton so that the retailer can rotate the stock by ensuring that the old cartons are shifted first.

It makes no sense for a retailer to pick the newest stock to send out with home deliveries. If you want the freshest stuff, go to the store and pick it yourself.

They're sending out out of date product in the examples here, not short date.

If they want to present home shopping as a premium service (and charge accordingly), they can't even get away with sending out short dated product. I wouldn't be surprised if they lose more in returns/rejects/refunds from customer care than they 'save' from deliberately sending the old crap out.

Turtle_

coylemj wrote: »

Stock rotation as practised in the retail trade says that when the retailer makes the decision, you sell the oldest products first. The way this is being portrayed as some kind of sharp practice is nonsense, it's the way it has always been in retail.

Even stock with a relatively long shelf life like Tayto crisps comes with stock codes printed on the carton so that the retailer can rotate the stock by ensuring that the old cartons are shifted first.

It makes no sense for a retailer to pick the newest stock to send out with home deliveries. If you want the freshest stuff, go to the store and pick it yourself.

Which is fine if the oldest stock has enough date left. Most households do a main weekly shop, and replenish stuff after 4-5 days. Fresh and perishable goods should have at least 4ish days left. They shouldn't be picking goods that go out of date quicker than they can reasonably be used over the next few days. They even advertise having fussy pickers!

dotcomedy

Pickers are trained to pick from the back. And for the most part they do. The problem arises when the picking team is swamped by unexpected busy days and other people are called in to help.

The other reason is bad dates in store.

From what I see in my travels, the main one is berries and some veg. Berries come in with 2 days on them. This is the very reason lidl and aldi dont put used by dates of their produce section. The things like crisps, bread and minerals are not packed by Tesco. Company reps come in and do it.

I have no problem refunding anything and everything our customers are not happy with. Its not my money. It makes my job enjoyable and stress free leaving with a smile rather than a temper.

People here are saying that online customers get the old stock. Its the very opposite. This was made a big thing off in stores last year and Dotcom heads come down hard on store managers for it now. They are trying to grow the sector with success in the last year. Better availability, less lates and better dates and better routing for the drivers.. Any long time customers would know this. It used to be a complete shambles..

What did we do years ago when milk went off the 3 days from the milk man?? Now peeps moan about 2L only having 7 days LOL.

Anything I state here is my opinion and not that of Tesco. By the way.

foggy_lad

@Dotcom What I was saying is that the online shopping experience is being marketed as if you did the shopping yourself and if I and most others did the shopping ourselves we will have a quick look on shelves for the freshest goods especially when it comes to dairy meat and fruit/veg and other perishables. Milk when delivered to a supermarket has a life of 11-12days so getting milk online with only 5-7days means it is seriously old stock that has been sitting on the shelf for days! 9-10days would be acceptable.

If Tesco and others want their online shopping to be the same experience as if you picked the goods yourself they need to get a grip on this issue, they have already done a lot of work on sorting out some of the mad substitutions that the computers were issuing so they are working on it! Best before or use by dates are next in line.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

foggy_lad wrote: »

@Dotcom What I was saying is that the online shopping experience is being marketed as if you did the shopping yourself and if I and most others did the shopping ourselves we will have a quick look on shelves for the freshest goods especially when it comes to dairy meat and fruit/veg and other perishables. Milk when delivered to a supermarket has a life of 11-12days so getting milk online with only 5-7days means it is seriously old stock that has been sitting on the shelf for days! 9-10days would be acceptable.

If Tesco and others want their online shopping to be the same experience as if you picked the goods yourself they need to get a grip on this issue, they have already done a lot of work on sorting out some of the mad substitutions that the computers were issuing so they are working on it! Best before or use by dates are next in line.

I don't shop online but have never seen milk in the supermarket with more than 5 or 6 days left on it no matter how I search through the shelves. The milkman however delivers milk to the door with 12 days on it.

foggy_lad

Reina Quiet Alphabet wrote: »

I don't shop online but have never seen milk in the supermarket with more than 5 or 6 days left on it no matter how I search through the shelves. The milkman however delivers milk to the door with 12 days on it.

The milkman delivers the same milk to supermarkets. If you are not seeing the longer dates in your local supermarkets you should probably change. my local Aldi always has milk with 10-12days life. Tesco has the same but they might not put the fresh milk out until the older milk has been sold, tesco online milk has 5-7days life.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

foggy_lad wrote: »

The milkman delivers the same milk to supermarkets. If you are not seeing the longer dates in your local supermarkets you should probably change. my local Aldi always has milk with 10-12days life. Tesco has the same but they might not put the fresh milk out until the older milk has been sold, tesco online milk has 5-7days life.

I'll stick where I am thanks.

L1011

Milk delivered this morning to my door has *14* days on it - I assume it came out of the cow yesterday. Same Avonmore franchiser does the supermarkets in the area.

foggy_lad

L1011 wrote: »

Milk delivered this morning to my door has *14* days on it - I assume it came out of the cow yesterday. Same Avonmore franchiser does the supermarkets in the area.

Did you check the garden for cowpats?:D

Is this your Milkman?

Yggr of Asgard

Anything that has a short date should be called out on the receipt and I can decide to give it back to the driver it does not suit.

If its not listed in that section and I find it out when I pack it away, I call Customer Service on the toll free number and get a refund plus I'm asking for credit against my delivery saver because I won't pay for delivery of outdates stuff.

In addition if it's out of date (i.e. yesterday's date etc) I log a complaint with FSAI https://www.fsai.ie/makeitbetter/ because that is the only way that Tesco learns. I had weeks where the store was sending of date food regularly and I got sick of the "we are sorry.." The FSAI or better the HSE had a nice chat with them and since then I had never anything out of date. Sure short date still happens sometimes, but nothing is out of date anymore.

Yes it's bad if something is short date because that is not what they promise, but as with everything that involved humans, errors happen.

Generally I find that Supervalu however has the better online shopping service, they call when they need to substitute or only have short date items and offer alternatives. Tesco just delivers and than let's you call Customer Service.

Giving that they clearly are loosing money on home deliveries hitting them with financial requests is the only way they either learn or withdraw the service.