Fresh produce

Blimey, I wish we could get soft fruit and mushrooms to last more than a day in Sicily, And I think there is no chance of getting any money back if I take it back and complain!

I buy all my fruit and veg from Aldi and Lidl's and try to base my menues on their 49/59p offers. They had beautiful ripe cherries last week and every one was okay. You have to watch some of the fruit like nectarines and peaches as, if they get bruised, they can get mouldy but they don't usually get a chance. I occasionally buy from Morrison's but NEVER from Tesco!!

Oh dear Eglantine.
Can you freeze them if you have a freezer?

I must say I don't bother with all the boiling quickly, timing then plunging in iced water before freezing these days but I have got a steamer so steam them lightly, rinse under the cold tap and bag veg up to freeze.

whitewave I am always wary of pork, rarely eat it, and never eat it if it has been reheated. I know we have fridges/freezers these days but I always remember what my DM used to say 'Don't eat pork unless there is an 'r' in the month' - although September can be hot too!

My son was telling me yesterday that he purchase some pork from Tesco and before his wife stopped him he'd eaten a couple of mouth fulls He went on to have food poisoning, not terribly badly but enough for him to have to have a day off work.

Yes I took them out of the bag and put them in the salad drawer but the ends were all mushy and nasty before I could use up a bagful. One of the problems of living on your own.

Bananas. It doesn't matter where I buy them. They look great on the outside but always seems to have brown squishy bits inside, usually at one end. This seems to have been a recent development. I wonder if the picking method has changed.

A bag of carrots went slimy and rotten in three days!
Do you not take them out of the bag when you get them home? I put them in the veg/salad drawer of the fridge on kitchen roll.

I thought that most farms packed their own produce - with great care. Then taken by refrigerated truck and goodness knows what the distributors/supermarkets do then - all farmers will make sure that their produce is picked at the best point in time to get to market in top condition.

Most fruit and veg in France is more expensive this year because of the weather we had earlier in the year. It ruined a lot of crops and the Bordeaux area is estimated to have lost about a million due to the damage to the grapes.

I think the supply chain has a lot to answer for. At best, picked on the farm, collected next day and taken to the packaging plant, packaged next day, taken to a central distribution the next day, distributed next day and delivered to supermarket, next day put out on the shelves. Five or six days from picking to buying, no wonder they go mouldy.
Lidl used to be good, but since they have expanded I have found the same problems. A bag of carrots went slimy and rotten in three days!

We also recently bought strawberries in France that were 90% bad by the next day, and they were expensive, too - 4 euros for a fairly small punnet! Why they should cost that much in a warm, rural area I can't imagine. Mind you I do find food in France expensive, even in the big supermarkets.

Cherries often do go off quickly, I find. I bought some really lovely, fat black English ones yesterday - Dh and I scoffed the lot last night.

Hi, the current high summer temperatures are probably the key reason for this. Using the fridge or a cool store does help though make sure that mould spores are not left around by thorough cleaning. Soon it will be cooler

Over the last 5 weeks I have taken back strawberries, asparagus, courgettes, raspberries and fresh chicken. The staff on customer services just refund the cost of the items. At one time you could get all your fruit and veg from the market but the nearest market is 14 miles away. Will have to start going to the village shop and paying the extra, will be no dearer than going to Tesco which is 5 miles away.

Thanks for your replies. Perhaps sending complaints directly to HO will get more response than the local supermarket.

I too am in SW France and find that if I go to Grand Frais for my fruit and veg it lasts a lot longer than from anywhere else. They are a shop which only sell fruit,veg, meat,fish and cheese with some dry and tinned goods. The temp of the ehtire shop is cooler than most supermarkets.

I used to get good fruit and veg from the local market but that lasts no time now.

Would appear to be getting a general thing.

It is not just supermarket fresh fruit that does not last, in the warmer weather I find that if I pick soft fruit like stawberries from the garden, they are only really nice and fresh if you eat them that day, which makes me wonder what treatment supermarket fruit gets.

I've stopped buying any fruit or veg in Tesco. The local Sainsbury or Asda are both reasonable but if I can't get to my local market I go to M&S where everything seems to last very well.

I do worry though as I wonder if the fruit/veg have been treated or sprayed with countless stuff so that they do last longer. I always try to buy organic rasps and strawberries as I know they absorb more of the pesticides.

I also always delve down to the bottom of the shelves in order to find the longest sell by date - which is maybe why all the older stuff gets left for other people to buy .

I usually find the produce in Tesco to be OK but bought some lovely large lemons on a Friday recently and put one in the fruit bowl - by Sunday it was covered in mould!

It happens here sometimes too (SW France.). I bought strawberries on Friday and found the majority were inedible. And some not-ripe peaches which I put in the fridge to stop them going mouldy still developed mould underneath.
I usually check soft fruit as far as possible to see if it's ok before I buy it.
When I'm in the shop the lady in charge of the fruit and veg section is usually there, checking everything, which is good.They bag-up and sell over-ripe over-date stuff separately at reduced prices. It sells too.
I wonder if it's something to do with imported fruit and veg being treated with some preservative to delay rotting?
We're lucky because the majority of it is locally grown and freshly picked.

I often think this is to do with the shelf stocking systems.
In our local Tesco (and other big names), the fresh produce is brought out onto the shop floor from chilled conditions in the back of the store.
These trolleys are stacked high and often left for ages while the shelf stacker person does numerous other jobs.
The fresh stuff then warms up and is subsequently placed into the chilled display cabinets.
This is the quickest way for fresh food to 'go off' .

This is why I stopped shopping at Tesco the freshness quality is awful the worst of all the supermarkets,take them back and complain also complain about the time you have used returning the items and you should be given a gift voucher for your trouble,if you can't get to the supermarket in the next few days freeze the said item and telephone CS and make your complaint,the supermarkets should not be getting away with this kind of service its disgracful.

Take it back for a refund. I've stopped shopping at Tesco for anything perishable because it just doesn't keep well. I noticed that fresh strawberries were on display yesterday and several punnets had rotting fruit in them.