Pre-Packed Fruit & Veg

[presta]

there's the substitutions so you'll probably still be missing a key item and need to visit a shop anyway

I won't be shopping online until they create a system where I can group a set of items for a recipe, and then tell them I want them all, or none at all. When somethings out of stock, it usually quickly goes out of stock everywhere else too.

 

[vickster]

I won't be shopping online until they create a system where I can group a set of items for a recipe, and then tell them I want them all, or none at all. When somethings out of stock, it usually quickly goes out of stock everywhere else too.

Can’t you just use something else or leave out? Other than baked goods, most meals don't need exact ingredients surely?

 

[Reynard]

Which of Boswells and Grain Culture Bake Shop has closed? It's been a while, so I'm not sure which is godawful now! And it's sad to hear the greengrocer on Lynn Road didn't survive the pandemic, but it was always a bit unusual.

I like the market, but I'm only there for coffee and cake, not trying to do real shopping. But yeah, in general: welcome to car-city, including this mistake.

They're both still there, but tbh, the Grain Culture shop is more of a special occasion boutique than an every day bakery where you'd buy the basics. I got gifted some bread and cakes from Boswell's a while back and they weren't that nice. Mind, I *do* bake my own bread, so...

The wee Turkish shop on the marketplace does fruit & veg. They're reasonable-ish if you only want a few items. I suspect the place on the Lynn Road went the same way as the Pork butcher in the high street. A lot of the small independent shops have gone, the high street is now (overpriced) charity shops and cafes and very little else.

When I first came out this way, there were two butchers, a large greengrocer in Market Street, North's Bakery as it was then, plus a fabulous independent little deli in what is now the Cloisters, the market was pretty decent insomuch that you could get anything and everything. Now I tend to come home empty-handed more often than not. There wasn't a fishmonger, but a van from Grimsby came round the villages on a Tuesday. We also had a butcher's van on Wednesdays and a greengrocer's van on Friday. Plus milk and dairy twice a week.

 

[gbb]

The meat and fish counters in my local Tesco (Ely) closed last summer, the deli counter never reopened after Covid, and the hot deli counter closed for good last weekend. Now it's pre-packed or nothing. I'm gutted, because I used all the counters regularly.

Ely has one small independent butcher, no fishmonger and no greengrocer. The one bakery is godawful, and the twice-weekly market is about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Of the five supermarkets in town, the only one with a remaining counter service is Waitrose.

And they're building a whole raft of new houses at the edge of town. Again. Ely has doubled in size since I moved out this way.

Its a sad thing with markets, they've changed...or have we ? Ive visited Ely a couple times in the last 2 years and its a lovely place, its got some character. But the market, busy and seemingly vibrant as it is, seems to have lots of stalls selling stuff, but not much food related. Is it truly that people just don't want that anymore, or is it the markets just cannot compete on the food side anymore ? Or something else ?
Personally, I think most people use a trip into town as a leasure activity nowadays, hence the proliferation of coffee outlets, cafes etc, its more about indulgence rather than neccessity. I suspect 99% of people using a market have already done their weekly shop.

Urbanisation hasn't helped, most people don't live anywhere near a market anyway
Life nowadays and the pace its lived at doesn't help either. If i think back to the 70s, Sundays, the shops were closed , Saturday, maybe 4 or 5 pm closed. Sundays really were day of rest, there was bogger all to do. Nowadays,everything is hell for leather. Shopping isnt a leasure activity, its another thing to just get done as quickly as possible.
Its not ideal or right of course, but I think its reality for a lot of people. I think we should train ourselves to relax more, do less and take pleasure from the simple stuff we all used to do...its all got lost somewhere in the hubbub of life nowadays.

 

[Reynard]

Its a sad thing with markets, they've changed...or have we ? Ive visited Ely a couple times in the last 2 years and its a lovely place, its got some character. But the market, busy and seemingly vibrant as it is, seems to have lots of stalls selling stuff, but not much food related. Is it truly that people just don't want that anymore, or is it the markets just cannot compete on the food side anymore ? Or something else ?
Personally, I think most people use a trip into town as a leasure activity nowadays, hence the proliferation of coffee outlets, cafes etc, its more about indulgence rather than neccessity. I suspect 99% of people using a market have already done their weekly shop.

Urbanisation hasn't helped, most people don't live anywhere near a market anyway
Life nowadays and the pace its lived at doesn't help either. If i think back to the 70s, Sundays, the shops were closed , Saturday, maybe 4 or 5 pm closed. Sundays really were day of rest, there was bogger all to do. Nowadays,everything is hell for leather. Shopping isnt a leasure activity, its another thing to just get done as quickly as possible.
Its not ideal or right of course, but I think its reality for a lot of people. I think we should train ourselves to relax more, do less and take pleasure from the simple stuff we all used to do...its all got lost somewhere in the hubbub of life nowadays.

I think it's probably a bit of both when it comes to markets. The food traders have to compete with the supermarkets and the non-food traders with the like of amazon, ebay, screwfix and the like. Then throw in the vagaries of the weather as well... It's a shame, because it could be SO much more.

Cambridge has a pretty decent market, but unless I'm there for other stuff, it's not worth the trip.

London's street markets have changed a lot as well over the years (I'm North-East London born & bred) but some are still pretty decent, like Walthamstow (a good general market), Ridley Road in Dalston (fabulous for fruit & veg) and Chapel Street in Islington (a small-ish all-rounder but with a lot of award-winning street food carts). Sadly, Hoxton market in Shoreditch is a shadow of its former once vibrant self.

What's disappeared from all of them are the food stalls that sell end-of-line, short-dated or damaged goods, stuff that's fallen off the back of a lorry. It's a shame, because they were always really good value. I guess the discount supermarkets and the pound shops have eaten into their margins, even if they're not really treading on each other's toes...

 

[Pat "5mph"]

stuff that's fallen off the back of a lorry.

That sentence means stolen stuff here

 

[Reynard]

That sentence means stolen stuff here

Or rather, stuff that's not been obtained strictly above board...

I remember seeing a lot of catering-sized packs of things on such stalls back in the day...

 

[presta]

Can’t you just use something else or leave out? Other than baked goods, most meals don't need exact ingredients surely?

I dislike cooking and find it stressful, and the way I manage the stress is by having well-rehearsed, detailed recipes, designed to use up each other's leftovers, so experimenting and improvising just add to the stress. A quarter of an egg to bind beefburgers, then next day three quarters of an egg in the cottage pie mash, then next day leftover cannellini beans from the cottage pie in a chicken cous cous recipe. A packet of cheese slices that goes in three different recipes, etc. Today I bought a courgette to go with half an aubergine left over, but I haven't got anything for the leftover courgette.

 

[annedonnelly]

I think it's probably a bit of both when it comes to markets. The food traders have to compete with the supermarkets and the non-food traders with the like of amazon, ebay, screwfix and the like. Then throw in the vagaries of the weather as well... It's a shame, because it could be SO much more.

Cambridge has a pretty decent market, but unless I'm there for other stuff, it's not worth the trip.

London's street markets have changed a lot as well over the years (I'm North-East London born & bred) but some are still pretty decent, like Walthamstow (a good general market), Ridley Road in Dalston (fabulous for fruit & veg) and Chapel Street in Islington (a small-ish all-rounder but with a lot of award-winning street food carts). Sadly, Hoxton market in Shoreditch is a shadow of its former once vibrant self.

What's disappeared from all of them are the food stalls that sell end-of-line, short-dated or damaged goods, stuff that's fallen off the back of a lorry. It's a shame, because they were always really good value. I guess the discount supermarkets and the pound shops have eaten into their margins, even if they're not really treading on each other's toes...

I think another issue is that people want to shop indoors. About 5 miles from here a town has a shopping mall with access to Asda at one end and Sainsbury's at the other. I guess there may be as many as 30 or 40 other shops in the mall.

Lots of people from Blyth head there to shop either by car or the older people go by bus. I hate the enclosed feeling of the mall but it seems that most other people prefer it. So despite Blyth having a long tradition of independent shops and a three times weekly market every one who has the luxury of a car or free bus pass is off to the mall. I've seen as few as four stalls on the Saturday market. Not much point in planning your weekly shop around that!

 

[Reynard]

I think another issue is that people want to shop indoors. About 5 miles from here a town has a shopping mall with access to Asda at one end and Sainsbury's at the other. I guess there may be as many as 30 or 40 other shops in the mall.

Lots of people from Blyth head there to shop either by car or the older people go by bus. I hate the enclosed feeling of the mall but it seems that most other people prefer it. So despite Blyth having a long tradition of independent shops and a three times weekly market every one who has the luxury of a car or free bus pass is off to the mall. I've seen as few as four stalls on the Saturday market. Not much point in planning your weekly shop around that!

Maybe, maybe not...

One of the best street markets I know (Ridley Road) is right next to a shopping mall that has a Sainsbury's and an Iceland, and just across the road there is an M&S Foodhall. On a bad day, you might have half a dozen fruit & veg stalls. On a good day, there are well over twenty. The market is always busy and the quality of the fresh produce is top notch. Probably due to the relative proximity of Spitalfields.

Go figure...

 

[gbb]

Dicussing freshness, If our business model (packer of citrus fruit and grape) is anything to go by, reducing waste is a very strong driver, there is a 'residency' KPI thats discussed daily, the objective being making as sure as you can that the oldest stock is used first. The turnaround of stock is very fast anyway with grape but citrus can store fairly well but still deteriorates in juiciest and flavour.
The offshoot of this is the customer gets the best and freshest fruit the supplier has in stock.
Supermarket produce is generally as good as it can be, the supermarkets and suppliers are very very aware waste costs them money and do everything they can to reduce it.

 

[simongt]

Yes, that's an irony of hypermarkets: people go there trying to save time because they're busy, but all the time driving to their special purpose way-out locations, walking across the mahoosive car park sprawls and then around the stadium-sized shop adds up and means that they end up with even less time. So they go less often, try to do 17 weeks' shopping in each visit to make the driving and walking time competitive and justify the huge vehicle they've used, but that means they can't buy fresh food that won't freeze well, because it won't last until the next shop.

When we used to shop at Tesco or Asda, it was noticeable that there were quite a few shoppers composed of a stressed lass hurling a bulging trolley with several bored or noisy bairns in tow plus bored out of his brain bloke. As online shopping was well established by then, it made me wonder why they put themselves through this rather than simply do the online shop instead and save all the time and aggro.

 

[presta]

I've had to give up buying their apples, oranges, lemons, kiwi fruit, tomatoes, and garlic because they're no longer sold loose

Perhaps they are listening after all.

I've noticed that apples, lemons kiwi fruit, tomatoes, and garlic are being sold loose again.

And Sainsburys have stopped selling oranges loose.....

 

[annedonnelly]

Perhaps they are listening after all.

I've noticed that apples, lemons kiwi fruit, tomatoes, and garlic are being sold loose again.

And Sainsburys have stopped selling oranges loose.....

I hope they are listening. Some retailers do seem to be making noises about reducing packaging. There was a lot of fuss recently because Sainsbury's changed the packaging on some of their meat products and people didn't like the way they looked.

I still get as much as I can from independents.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, that was the vac-packed beef mince.