People who dump perishables on regular store shelves are scum. Its like one of those "are you a good human" tests, and its literally so easy to pass. Just... Dont do that.
In many other countries, shopping carts eat a coin that releases them from a chain linked to the previous cart, and give it back to you when you plug it back in. I’d be curious for studies to see how effective it is. Surprised that nowhere in the US seems to do it that way
As someone who frequents Aldi, people will still leave their cart in the parking lot instead of taking it back.
Which is so much worse, because not only do you have to use a quarter to get it out, but the parking lot is so much smaller so it's not even that far to take it back.
Once found a cart with a lone, still sealed box of gushers fruit snacks in the middle of the parking lot. Was still there on the way out, so someone payed me a quarter and some free snacks to put their cart away for them.
Aldi does this in the US. And what most people do is ask you to take their cart as you go in. They likely also got it from someone else, so it's a long line of no one actually paying but also never returning it.
I work in a smaller retail store and we had a chance to get one of those machines. Owners decided that it wasn't a big deal and people can always retrieve carts. Biggest complaint our store has is its it's hard to find someone, because (mostly) they're getting carts.
What I don't understand is why customers feel compelled not to stack them together. Far too common the exit door is bogged down with abandoned carts next to each other.
Keeping the theme of groceries, I also feel this way about people who don’t place the divider after they have loaded their groceries onto the conveyor belt when checking out
Another one that really bothers me as someone with allergies is people will regularly dump normal food in the allergen free section without a care. Most people with allergies check labels, but not everyone does! And not everyone who's shopping in that section is the person with the allergy, which then leads to a well-meaning purchase making someone super sick :( if you can't be bothered to take it back to where it belongs, at least make sure you're not leaving it somewhere misleading...
It is a "are you a good person" test exactly because it is a small easy thing to pass. People will sometimes say things like "why are you making a big thing out of nothing" (e.g. divorce over never taking out trash etc.), but it is exactly because not doing those small things say a lot about the person. If you can't even do the small and easy things, are you even putting any effort into being a decent person at all?
Most stores have policies on food that is misplaced or left in the improper section and even if someone gets to it quick enough, it'll go in the "throw out" pile.
It's quite literally a waste of food. If you don't want something take the 20 seconds to walk it back where it came from
Used to work in a grocery store, I remember one time I was wandering the freezer aisle and saw a bottle of jam stuck in one of the freezers. We had to toss it. The jam stock was the next aisle over in the non-frozen section.
Something similar happened once when I was out shopping, but worse. Someone had placed an energy drink can in the ice cream freezer and it exploded. Thankfully the freezer didn't break, but it was a huge hassle for the workers when the person who did it could've at the very least just put it on top of the freezer instead.
The amount of times i had to bring fish dumped in one of the freezers back to the fish department from the frozen department, like you got the guy to cut the fish, and weight it for you… and you just toss it next to the ice cream. They can’t even re use it since it was already cut to size or whatever, or because it was already given to a customer and they can’t just reuse it for another customer
I used to work as a grocery store cashier back in college and I hated when customers would give me some frozen or meat product saying they didn’t want it anymore, expecting me to put it back or flag down someone to do it. It was always busy and near impossible to find the time or someone else available, not to mention the hassle of having to run all the way to find where it belongs and back even if I could find the time
I work in the freezer at my store, and the amount of produce, dairy, and fresh meat (even soup once) I find is reprehensible. Especially the spray whipped cream, those explode if left too long.
One fun night while blocking the frozen isles I found a gallon of milk, a ten pound bag of potatoes, and a can of Veg-all, along with a few other items. All were stuffed in the back of the freeze under bags of chciken nuggets and frozen solid. Both the can of veggies and the milk looked distended. The potatoes were HEAFTY too.
I used to work in a grocery store and I feel like the vast majority of the time people leave foods in a place where they will be ruined by being left there. Hot rotisserie chicken would always get left on refrigerated foods, ruining them both.
The worst is when they stick it in the freezer aisle. Like... idk it would even be better if they had left it on the floor next to the freezer. Why go out of the way to ruin it?
As someone who works in retail, can confirm. The store I work at is a small town grocery store and isn't huge, but it's still difficult to keep track of if someone leaves their half full shopping basket on an aisle and just fucks off, which has happened on a few of my shifts. Some things can just be placed back on the shelf, but that's literally only if it's something that never was in a fridge or a freezer, otherwise it gets thrown away which sucks for everyone
I am so glad the only time I had to abandon a cart it had no perishables. Kiddo went from fine to vomiting in three seconds. At least the store didn't have to clean anything up since I caught it in my hat. We booked it outta there.
Yeah I wouldn't be too mad in a situation like this, especially if I don't have to go get the mop. Putting a few cans and boxes of beans and rice isn't a huge deal, although I'm gonna look like a fool for a while just spinning around trying to figure out if the cart is actually abandoned or if the customer is simply grabbing a thing from the other aisle and didn't want to drag the whole cart with them through the relatively cramped store
One time I was shopping and I had a basket full of groceries only to realize when I got to checkout that I'd forgotten my credit card in my car. I asked the employee if I could leave my basket with him for a minute while I ran out to get it, and he said yes. I specifically did not want things to be thrown out, which is why I left it with him. Then he passed it into another employee who misunderstood and tossed all the perishables. I was so bummed when I came back. The guy did fish some of them back out of the trash if they were in sealed containers, so it didn't all go to waste at least.
but it's still difficult to keep track of if someone leaves their half full shopping basket on an aisle and just fucks off, which has happened on a few of my shifts
Man that is so sad to read. That's sooooo much food to basically just waste. Worst part is that you can ask and sometimes the staff can hold the cart if you need to run and come back. At least they have done that for me in the past
At my store it's still rare and even when it happens it isn't that much of waste (the customers are considerate and the store small, most fresh foodstock moves at a rate that the same pack of meat usually doesn't stay on the fridge shelf even for a week before it's bought), but it does become an issue when the amount of food across multiple stores starts to add up, especially with the large supermarkets and megamarkets in the area. I shudder to imagine how much wasted food those produce
I was able to do that once and was so SO grateful. I realized right as I was waiting to pay that I had forgotten my wallet. At my house. Which was at least half an hour away. The employees were so nice to let me go get it and hold my cart for me. Definitely was grateful to them, as I was doing my monthly groceries, so there was quite a lot of food there.
If someone gets caught abandoning perishables, then I think the cashier should have the right to pick something out of their cart during checkout and just take it away.
I think corporates would have the ability to decline their card and add it to a list. Then every time they want to shop there, they are known for their deeds.
The homeless are not treated well, and rather than expose themselves to liability, stores will throw good food thats past "Sell by" times and dates even if a literal starving to death child is next to the dumpster.
Its actually grounds as a 'For Cause' termination due to the potential liability.
And yes, thats a a hyperspecific example I'm making assuming circumstances about the person above.
are not treated well, and rather than expose themselves to liability
I remember a pizza place near my college that would "throw out" all the leftover pizza at the end of the day. And just so happen to leave it in boxes/bags on the top of the dumpster and if some hungry college kid came by and took it well then hey, oh well.
Not gonna lie, I'm surprised the employees didn't take it.
When I used to work at a pizza place I practically lived on leftover pizza. (And, if there was a day when we didn't have any, I was not above having a friend call in to place an order and then "forget" to pick it up)
A lot of places forbid employees from taking leftovers specifically to avoid people “accidentally” realizing they made too much food for the day.
At least when I worked at Starbucks, pastries were considered low enough risk to donate leftovers to a nearby shelter. Employees were still not allowed to take any… not that that stopped them either.
The pizza shops in my area have a policy of pouring powdered bleach over the top of the dumpster pizzas so that desperate people would get sick if they tried to eat it. It's so needlessly cruel.
To be fair, I am fairly certain the reason for that is because companies have been sued and lost for that very reason. Once bitten, twice shy.
Not to really defend them, I am sure if they put in the effort they could reduce waste and donate wastage in a way they wouldn’t be held liable for while doing good in the world.
While I totally agree, the problem is that I think it's cheaper in the long run for them to just lose the food. Which really is a total shame. I've seen just so much good wasted that way
Alternatively, hand it to your cashier when you're checking out. I used to be a cashier and would see people go to just put things on the snack shelves and would just politely call out "you can hand that up here and I'll restock it!" Most people don't even seem to realize that's an option.
I actually called a lady out for that in the checkout line recently 👀😅 she was in front of me and about to stash a yogurt on the shelf, I just politely said "hey, if you hand that to the cashier, they'll have someone restock it so it doesn't go bad!" She looked a bit surprised and said "oh, I didn't think of that" and she ended up handing to the cashier and the cashier looked incredibly thankful.
A lot of grocery stores have a person who goes around to help grab or put back items, so never hesitate to hand it to the cashier on your way out if you change your mind! We also appreciate not needing to bring back an armful of rotten stuff from our lane which we are expected to maintain. It was always sad finding a melted ice cream or something, especially if it started leaking 😓
She looked a bit surprised and said "oh, I didn't think of that" and she ended up handing to the cashier and the cashier looked incredibly thankful.
That's awesome that you taught someone that tool, but it still makes me irrationally angry that the first instinct is to basically hide it and let the store find it, seemingly ignoring the fact that yes, employees can restock an item if you decide you no longer need it. How would you not know that you could change your mind at the cashier, and they won't force you to buy it???
Or at the very least bring it to the checkout and tell the clerk you don't want it. Rather that then finding a dozen pints of melted ice cream in the diaper sections. Bet these people don't even pass the cart return test.
I once saw a large pack of frozen onion rings that someone dumped on a box of chocolates. This brand of chocolate is similar to M&M’s but the packaging is a cardboard box similar to nerds candy. Absolutely destroyed the packaging for the chocolates when the onion rings defrosted.
I worked at a Walmart in my 20's, found a package of raw beef someone stuck back on one of the shelves of candy that line the checkout lane. God only knows how long it was there, was disgusting. It's like, what the heck, you're already that close to the cashier, just give what you don't want to us so we can put it back instead of letting good food go to waste!
I was once at checkout and some idiot ahead of me emptied half of her basket, mostly fresh products, and stuffed them in the checkout racks where you can find the gums etc.
WTF, why did she even get them in the first place?
I was really annoyed over all this food being wasted. What a pointless and stupid thing to do.
Or take it with you and give it to a cashier and tell them you changed your mind on buying it. At least then they could probably get someone to put it back or something
I worked in a grocery store floral department and someone set the OJ on one of our displays instead of walking 3 steps over to put it back. I was so flabbergasted.
It's bad enough when people dump non-perishables in random locations in the grocery store.
If you're dumping something that's going to go bad because you changed your mind and are too lazy to put it back where it should be? You're a self-centered repugnant cunt.
At one point in my store, there was a faint nasty smell but nobody could find it. We only located it as in the beginning of one of the aisles.
After like 4 days, at night when I had nothing better to do with no customers, I find it.
It's a 1lb package of ground hamburger that someone BURIED in a little wire basket display of single-serving cartons of goldfish crackers.
There was no leak of the now bloated package (thank god) but we still chucked all of that product, took the display outside, thoroughly cleaned it with serious chemicals, then power hosed the ever loving shit out of it till we decided we were done.
And left it out in the baking sun for a couple days to be sure.
This was a tiny grocery store with only 5 aisles and maybe 50 feet long. The amount of times I have found product literally two steps away from where it should go.
I was shopping one time and a woman in front of me picked up an item off the shelf and examined it. She did not stop walking. She decided she didn't want the item or maybe she had no intention of buying it in the first place. She put it down on the shelf nearest to her... which at this point was on the other end of the aisle. I ran it back to it's proper spot and then ran back just in time to see her misplace another item in the next aisle.
These were all dry goods but still... what the actual fuck?
Dont even get me started on party/holiday isles! In my local walmart ppl just throw everythig on the floor. Its the worst at halloween. I once stopped to just clear a floor path so the isle was usable for passage and while mummbling to myself "my god who does this" an employee in charge of the section comes from behind me and goes "this happens every couple hours every single day" and i honestly just felt alittle faith in humanity die. For reference i live in a small town where most things just dont happen that much. But everyone treats the holiday and party area like they are children left unattended.
That's not even the best part of the call. She was obviously on something based on her vitals and eyes so when we removed her VERY VERY carefully from the store, on the way out she screamed and I quote
"IM THE MOTHER OF THE WORLD"
Stuck her ass straight up and became a hot yellow shit volcano that went EVERYWHERE. Luckily it only hit us firefighters but we left quite the slime trail getting out of there
I hate wasting food of any kind, but I especially HATE wasting meats and animal products like eggs, milk, cheese, etc. I also just find it disrespectful to farmers that grow stuff for us. Idk, I'm weird I guess.
There's a wartime cartoon, on first thought I'd have thought Private SNAFU, but IIRC it is his lower budget draft cousin, Private McGillicuddy.
In this one, IIRC the reel goes on food rationing for the war effort and this really patriotic young bull volunteers himself to feed the US forces.
When McGillicuddy disrespects him by not eating the C-ration made out of him and throwing it out, it causes the bull spirit to manifest and charge him.
Used to work at a grocery store, and man does this happen a lot. Shout out to the time I found a block of cheese in the cereal section. It must have gotten knocked back behind some boxes because when I pulled it out it was a big ball of black fuzz barely being contained by the plastic...
I despise those who just take stuff and then leave it in a different section. When I see something like this, I always inform the store clerk about it.
It's not about "saving the store from loss", it's about not wanting to waste food.
It annoys me to no end when I go to grocery store and see perishable food left out in random shelves bc the person couldn’t be bothered to go and put it the fuck baxk.
Only three ways that should end for the one doing that: Get sent (back) to a dementia home, get sent to an asylum for the psychiatric care that's needed, or compensate the store with 100x the purchase price of the product.
This irritates me it’s such a waste like even if you don’t want to take it back, at the very least give it to a worker you see and they’ll put it back up. If you can’t be bothered to do that, then give it to the cashier when you cash out these help with making sure it isn’t wasted.
Thats just due to circumstances, not anything particularly special about humans.
Ants regularly ransacked entire swaths of rainforest and kill anything that moves within miles of their hive. Their ecological destruction is incredible, literally forcing entire species extinct due to the nature of their hunting strategies (assuming these are usually insects that are found in small patches of land and cannot escape ant wrath in time).
In general, we are just really good at what most other animals already do, ie change their environments to suit their needs.
We are just barely smart enough to realize that doing so has repurcussions; some of us try to stem the tide, others are of the opinion its their solemn God given duty to do whatever they want to the world.
I think along these lines when people come up with 'natural' arguments for things.
Nature isn't good or bad, and in many ways, humans would mostly not agree with things nature does. Our ability to ignore instincts and make choices on other criteria is one of the things in which humans will often use to separate ourselves from animals. So going back to the natural argument isn't really the slam dunk a lot of people think it is.
Surplus killing. Jaguars will kill entire herds of goats and only drag off a single carcass to eat.
Animals that waste food are just following instincts. Humans can reason and understand why leaving safe food to rot is wrong. That’s what makes humans wasting food wrong.
I saw this last week with the spice section. 4 pre made burger patties. Just chilling on the shelf. 30 ft from where they grabbed the beef. They couldn't be bothered to make patties from ground beef of course they left it seconds away from where they grabbed it.
It gets worse when you realize how many bodies get thrown in the trash at processing facilities. I used to for for a Tyson plant in shipping. So many birds die for nothing, man.
There is so much food waste that both the cost for us to receive food and the amount of people that go without it should make humanity embarrassed to ever encounter an alien race. I’m sure that alone would make them turn away from us because of the cruelty it is. We are capable of far worse but that’s likely what they would notice first. There are so many ways to solve hunger and capitalism prevents ALL OF THEM.
Obviously dont waste food, but i can promise you that the chicken that suffered through the horrors of our meat production does not give a shit if you are gonna eat it.
It also happens in my (rather expensive with a cheaper alternative close by) supermarket. I hope it's just stupid teenagers or kids and not what should be adults.
I fucking hate people who do this so much for this very reason. Either think if you really need this or if you change your mind, move your fat ass back to the fridge and put it back. Or at least leave it at the cashier which will be sent back way faster than someone randomly finding it on a shelf with canned dog food...
I worked at a grocery store and people would just take milk/yogurt out of the fridge and leave it on the bread island outside of the fridges instead of putting it right back there in the fridge.
I just recently went to a convenience store, where they have a small clearance section in small cardboard shelves. I rummaged around and found a room temperature case of greek yogurt instead of an affordable household item.
I was certainly surprised, but more than that irritated at whoever left it there. It was only a few steps away from the milk products and to go through the length of hiding it instead, is incomprehensible to me.
Don't get me started on you fuckers who do this shit on purpose!!! Someone hid a package of ground beef behind the olive oil. It took like 3 weeks to find it. Ugh, I hate people.
Highly relatable. When the Cannibals come for me, my last thought will absolutely be that at least they'll enjoy chewing on my flesh.
And that will give me solace.
A few days ago I was restocking shelves at the store I work at and found a box of ice cream bars that someone had opened, ate two of, and left in the middle of the fitness equipment section
Didn't even throw the wrappers away (there was a trash bin an aisle over), just stuffed them behind the wrist weights
I literally saw this happen two days ago. Couple made it to the till in front of me, did a final check on the price of a frozen turkey, and didn't like it.
There's a shelf under the conveyor belt made for leaving things you don't want, and they left it there... to defrost?
As much as I love eating meat, and hate that supermarket (because they lie about their sales), if we are going to kill animals to eat them, and least make their sacrifice worthwhile.
I took it to the closest freezer, it was like 6 steps.
I work in the produce department of a grocery store. Almost every morning when I clock in, theres misplaced items in my pre-cut produce cases. Never once have I taken an item off a shelf, decided, "hmm.. I dont want this anymore" and just put it on the nearest surface. Take one minute to put it back where you got it!! I dont understand how this isnt common sense 😭
I used to work at a grocery. Officially we were supposed to toss stuff like that, unofficially we were supposed to restock it. The manager would punish you for not restocking by giving you fewer hours or sending you to only do the worst jobs. Let the buyer beware.
I'm not surprised p&c foods went bankrupt and no longer exists
I work in retail and I will say I hate when people do this. Like you think stuff like the chicken, or ice cream, or other products that require certain storage temperatures will last on a random shelf? It honestly pisses me off when I see stuff like this. Like just put it back where it goes or hold on till check out and give it to the cashier(context: the place I work at has cashiers taken products that customers don’t want anymore and holds them to be collected by another employee). Like how hard is that?
As someone who works at a grocery store, it’s depressing how often this happens. People just don’t want to have to walk back the five feet it takes to put something back since they know it won’t be their problem.
This spoke to me, I used to be a reset merchandiser which includes; cleaning or replacing shelfs or gondolas, rearranging or moving products to new locations and plugging in new products. I seen some horrible stuff people left or lost over the years that got stuck or lost between isles / gondolas. it was uncommon to find lots broken glass under or between gondolas. Oh if there was product that was stuck or lost under or between gondolas but were not broken their expiration date would be years old.
Edit: I just remembered how people would hide opened products between or under gondola feet to hide the fact they opened product and stole some of it.
I think about this literally any time I end up wasting food. I get sad when I have to throw out the remaining green onions I didn't use and they expired. I think of all the energy and time that went into getting the food from the world and to my table and how many people had a hand in it and I feel like I let them all down.
Had a lady try to balance a chicken on my impulse buys (gum chocolate whatever) I said very loudly "MAM IM PRETTY SURE THAT DOESNT GO THERE" she was super pissed and snapped ar everything during the transaction best part was her credit card wasn't working and wouldn't let me touch it to swipe correctly
A week ago I was at a store and found somebody shoved their unwanted, uncooked chicken into an energy drink fridge by the front. While it is a fridge and is cold enough for thawed chicken, there are components that cause horrible diseases that you're letting interact with drinks people won't generally wash before opening. You're just getting people sick instead of walking a little extra to put it back where you found it if you do that.
I sometimes see food left out on shelves, where it's meant to be cold. I check if it is still cold, and if so, I take it back to the fridge/freezer. What is wrong with some people?
Can't help but think of that video of the guy having the psychotic episode burning down the TP warehouse. The evil that that sort of thing is is just atrocious. Those trees died for nothing. The pulp and paper industry burning through materials for nothing. Those workers that huge portion of their labour for nothing. Think before you act.
Work in a grocery store can confirm. Is it really that hard to just hold onto it until you get to the register and tell the cashier you don’t want it anymore?
We literally have carts up front specifically for this and have people run them back to the place they belong
big stores have security cameras watching every isle. This kind of stuff only happens sometimes. They should be able to send security within seconds of seeing someone do this
It pisses me off so bad when people do this. An animal died for nothing just because you couldn't be arsed to walk a few more metres back towards the refrigerator section.
Back in my college days, I worked in the meat department at a grocery store, and I would see this all the time; it ground my gears to no end and still makes me mad thinking about it.
Policy was anything that needs refrigeration found abandoned outside of a refrigerated area gets tossed, no exceptions. One time, someone ditched a $300+ bag of crab legs that I had to toss. Fucking wild.
800
u/Made_Bail 3h ago
People who dump perishables on regular store shelves are scum. Its like one of those "are you a good human" tests, and its literally so easy to pass. Just... Dont do that.