Tesco's fruit .

[samboy]

Hi gang.

               I will never buy Tesco's fruit again. It goes rotten after a couple of days. I've said this a few times but this time i mean it.

               So where is the best shop to buy fruit from ?.

                                                                                    Thanks all.

[Dave at kelton]

2 minutes ago, samboy said:

Hi gang.

               I will never buy Tesco's fruit again. It goes rotten after a couple of days. I've said this a few times but this time i mean it.

               So where is the best shop to buy fruit from ?.

                                                                                    Thanks all.

Local greengrocers here  in Scotland

[Scully]

Do you not have a local fruit and veg’ shop? 
We always shop locally for meat and fruit and veg if we can. Not always possible admittedly, living in the sticks, but the vast majority of our fruit, veg’ and meat is bought at local outlets. 
The supermarkets are only a last resort. 

[CaptC]

Absolutely agree about Tesco's fruit - We try and buy locally but even sunny Cornwall does not produce bananas. Two days max and it's gone off.

The Memsahib has a theory that their fruit is already stored "up country" and by the time it gets to the stores it is already beginning to go off. 

[yates]

Decent green grocer is your best option. Normally more expensive but better quality

[Cosmicblue]

I've worked with the supply chain for fresh food products in supermarkets.  They use chillers to lower the temperature of the product to increase the shelf-life in storage - typically 5c.  The risk is that much lower than 5c it 'kills' the fruit and accelerates the decay process.  

I'm a Braeburn apple addict - by nature they should be crisp, all too often they are soft  - because they have been over-chilled.

[Ultrastu]

Ashley's

local grocery  at the top of my lane .

[samboy]

There is a farm shop 5 mins from me which a few people say is good and rate their fruit and veg so i will give it a try.

[VicW]

All our local food shops were driven out of business by the advent of supermarkets because the local shops cannot compete with the buying power of the big stores. I agree that the quality of the fruit and veg that our local supermarkets sell leaves a lot to be desired.

Vic.

[Walker570]

40 minutes ago, samboy said:

There is a farm shop 5 mins from me which a few people say is good and rate their fruit and veg so i will give it a try.

I was just about to say your local farm shop.  However having said that one of them tends not to cull the out of date  going past it's best fruit so you have to be picky even there.  My wife buys ready prepared fruit from Aldi all ready cut into chunks and ready to eat and they do a whole range. Easy to do a fruit salad for guests if we have a barbie.   Our apple, pear and plums are pre prepared and frozen back in September and October, vaccuum packed. We have one of those neat little peeling coring machines from Lakeland about £15 if I remember which reduces a bucket of apples to sliced round pieces in short time.  OK we are lucky in having a fairly large orchard.  Just defrost a pack and add either a crust or crumble with home grown walnuts ....whats not to like?   They last us almost to when the new supply comes of the trees.  I eat  fair amount of dates although I am checking those these days to see if they are Iranian. I prefer the large loose dates which my local farm shop sells.

[Rob85]

The worst fruit we have bought lately that never lasts is raspberries, no matter where we buy them from...usually local greengrocer/farm shop... and within a day or 2 at the most they have grown a full head of hair.

[Imperfection]

As has been mentioned, usually the supplier (not retailer) will drop the temperature to the point an apple for example would theoretically last forever so the moment the cold comes out at room temp at home it goes off rapidly.

I used to deliver pallets of fruit & veg to Tesco amongst others years ago via a chiller lorry so knew most of the things which go on like trimming the green leaves on spring onions to make them look fresh. Markets tend to sell class 2 (produce which has been rejected by supermarkets so goes to auction).

Try an independent shop but be warned they all tend to use the same produce wholesalers so you may end up with same result.

[gmm243]

I am lucky to have a good local fruit and veg shop nearby but at times I have bought fruit in Lidl which has been fine. 

I have been in Tesco a few times recently and noticed oranges already going off in the net bag,some with mould obvious on them.Was surprised they were still on the shelves.

We grow strawberries,raspberries,logan berries and red/blackcurrants so we freeze these down and then defrost through the year as needed.

We also have a lovely vine which produces great grapes but we have to wait til Sept/Oct for those.

[harrycatcat1]

We've stopped buying fruit and veg from Lidl as we joke that you have to eat it before you get home otherwise it will be off. So it's not just Tesco.

[Mice!]

4 hours ago, Rob85 said:

The worst fruit we have bought lately that never lasts is raspberries, no matter where we buy them from...usually local greengrocer/farm shop... and within a day or 2 at the most they have grown a full head of hair.

They shouldn't even be available yet really,  I've been buying the dearer fruit Aldi do, there strawberries and raspberries lately have been great, but I have had soft apples(they'll have been stored) and tangerine type fruit go off very quickly,  I find it best not to buy too much at once.

[39TDS]

4 hours ago, Rob85 said:

The worst fruit we have bought lately that never lasts is raspberries, no matter where we buy them from...usually local greengrocer/farm shop... and within a day or 2 at the most they have grown a full head of hair.

The only way you can stop that is by using fungicides. Lots of fungicides have been withdrawn from use and the ones that are left don't do a very good job.

I've been a commercial raspberry grower most of my life and long term storage and long distance travel have never really been solved as far as raspberries or strawberries are concerned. There was a comment about hard strawberries, that is one of the ways around it, breed fruit better suited to transport and storage but so far it has been at the expense of flavour and texture.

The supermarkets use centralised storage/distribution depots so fruit produced in Worcester for example may well be transported down to Kent before being distributed to the Evesham store. Doesn't do them any favours.

Edited May 6, 2021 by 39TDS

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, is not most fruit and veg put in cold storage first ? going to try the new Lidl today, will see how long the apples last, we have a very big farm shop near Abingdon but the prices do not seem to put customers off, 

[WalkedUp]

19 hours ago, Scully said:

We always shop locally for meat and fruit and veg if we can. 

This, supermarket fruit and vegetables are not good quality and are often expensive. 

M&S fruit is ok.

We tend to shop a variety of local farm shops, butchers and greengrocers. My wife needed to save money from the weekly shop and switched to Lidl for fruit and vegetables after everyone raves about them. She didn’t tell me or the boys so it was a single “blind” test. We all mentioned how awful the meal was that night. The tomatoes were dreadful. She repeated the experiment weeks later with the same result. 

The biggest con is that people think the likes of Lidl are cheap because they have deliberately ugly branding and this kitsch faux-frugal shopping experience. 9/10 times the actual reason their products are cheap is because they are s**te. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by WalkedUp

[udderlyoffroad]

1 hour ago, WalkedUp said:

We all mentioned how awful the meal was that night.

Different rules in the walkedup household obviously.... 😁

1 hour ago, WalkedUp said:

kitsch faux-frugal shopping experience.

As opposed to...what?

Tesco's particular circle of hell with over priced poor quality ****?

ASDA's clientele of wheezing salad dodgers screaming at their kids?

M&S foods' drop-your-trousers pricing model?

My supermarket loyalty used to be based on what was the least effort to go to on my commute home.  Now that commuting isn't a thing, whatever is close and quick.  That's why the Lidl and Aldis of this world are popular, you can be in and out quick.

As for the fruit and veg:  Yes Tesco's appears to be particularly poor+overpriced.  Aldi isn't great, and Lidl seems to have a slight edge over them. 

If you want to eat out-of-season fruit and veg, well, expect compromise.

 

[discobob]

41 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Different rules in the walkedup household obviously.... 😁

As opposed to...what?

Tesco's particular circle of hell with over priced poor quality ****?

ASDA's clientele of wheezing salad dodgers screaming at their kids?

M&S foods' drop-your-trousers pricing model?

My supermarket loyalty used to be based on what was the least effort to go to on my commute home.  Now that commuting isn't a thing, whatever is close and quick.  That's why the Lidl and Aldis of this world are popular, you can be in and out quick.

As for the fruit and veg:  Yes Tesco's appears to be particularly poor+overpriced.  Aldi isn't great, and Lidl seems to have a slight edge over them. 

If you want to eat out-of-season fruit and veg, well, expect compromise.

 

We was Aldi down to the quickness of in and out and I have been using Aldi since the 80's stationed in Germany, with top ups from Tesco for the odd things you couldn't get there. However at the start of lockdown we found that the queues for Aldi were massive so gave Lidl a try and we haven't been disappointed on the whole and the bakery is brilliant.

They are currently rebuilding our Aldi into a bigger one so we will see what happens there.

We stopped buying Fruit and Veg from our only big chain - Tesco - years ago because it was always rubbish and ended up in the recycling

 

[WalkedUp]

9 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Different rules in the walkedup household obviously.... 😁

🤣

Fortunately my wife is a good cook and enjoys all aspecting of cooking and baking. I did however couch my feedback as something on the lines of:

Me ”Darling thank you for your effort cooking for us once again, are the tomatoes a different variety as they have a slightly bitter, almost herbaceous taste that I am not familiar with”

Wifey ”I knew you would bloody notice” 

[harkom]

On 06/05/2021 at 16:29, Walker570 said:

I was just about to say your local farm shop.  However having said that one of them tends not to cull the out of date  going past it's best fruit so you have to be picky even there.  My wife buys ready prepared fruit from Aldi all ready cut into chunks and ready to eat and they do a whole range. Easy to do a fruit salad for guests if we have a barbie.   Our apple, pear and plums are pre prepared and frozen back in September and October, vaccuum packed. We have one of those neat little peeling coring machines from Lakeland about £15 if I remember which reduces a bucket of apples to sliced round pieces in short time.  OK we are lucky in having a fairly large orchard.  Just defrost a pack and add either a crust or crumble with home grown walnuts ....whats not to like?   They last us almost to when the new supply comes of the trees.  I eat  fair amount of dates although I am checking those these days to see if they are Iranian. I prefer the large loose dates which my local farm shop sells.

So what is your issue with buying " non-Iranian dates". ..... or is this just another example whereby a comment (aka statement) can be misconstrued by whomsoever chooses to use it ... to support their own agenda ? 

Apologies .... just using this as a QED.

[WalkedUp]

9 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Tesco's particular circle of hell

My mother has refused to shop at Tesco for at least 35 years as she finds their stores “ugly” and lighting “garish” 🤣

[worrall26]

Most of this fruit temperatured controlled of continent. artificually matured.

Buy British fruit when in season. The best.

Know some fruits wont grow here. but buy them when coming in seson in another country.

[Walker570]

50 minutes ago, harkom said:

So what is your issue with buying " non-Iranian dates". ..... or is this just another example whereby a comment (aka statement) can be misconstrued by whomsoever chooses to use it ... to support their own agenda ? 

Apologies .... just using this as a QED.

If you had not read the news lately you would have read where they are holding a Britsh lady as a hostage and have kept her away from her child and husband for many months now almost all the time in a stinking Iranian jail. My attitude is why buy from such people and support their economy. Similarly the French.

I correct your wording as I have no bother buying dates from another FRIENDLY country.