I’d love to meet the person that picks my supermarket order ?

Thanks for a good laugh, cheered me up no end. Still laughing at the one sprout.

I had my first ever supermarket delivery yesterday and quite frankly it was a disaster. Half the food was missing, no bread, milk, meat or fresh vegetables just a waste of time. DH had to break lockdown to get some bread and milk.
I wish I lived in a much nicer area, it is clear from what I was given that this is a very chavy town.

My friend was a ‘picker’ at Tesco for a while. Her handheld device told her which aisle and which shelf to go to to collect the items. If substitutions had to be made, the device told her what to choose instead. It told her which box to place the item in on her trolley - it contained numerous boxes for several customers at a time. Every item was scanned before putting it into the boxes to ensure no error was made by the picker. Considering the relentless pressure that the pickers are under, they don’t have the luxury to select considered alternatives. They grab what they have to and move on.
Her shifts began at 6am, now it’s 4am and Tesco want them to start at 3am. She had to resign in the end, she stuck it out for a year. It’s a very physical job, constantly pressured to maintain speed and accuracy. She walked miles per shift and was totally exhausted.

I have seen behind the scenes and pickers only have a certain amount of time to pick each order and on there shift they are given a set amount of orders to pick and have to pick them all in this time to hit target levels. Pitfalls at the moment are- social distancing, customers keep stopping them asking them questions, and so many items still not in stock, last but not least the increased amount of online deliveries since lockdown. Honestly behind the scenes they are run ragged. Obviously I understand your frustration but just wanted to throw some light on there struggles. They are the key workers that have been forgotten.

I order from Iceland and they do brilliantly all my food stuff is correct and have done well during this time.

I got quinoa instead of olive oil!

I'm veggie, all my family are also veggie or vegan so none of us has ever ordered any meat product from a supermarket. I ordered a vegan individual pie for my dinner and they substituted it for a meat one.` now I always tick the no substitutions box if the item is a veggie one. At least a meat eating friend benefited from it

This is going to be a long reply. Please anyone don’t take this personally. I am a former supermarket manager and know exactly how these things work. If items are out of stock the Picker is allowed to pick for you if you have not given a substitute. If you have more than 5 items out of stock they should be emailing you. They are not allowed to continue with the pick. Present times with panic buying this has been very tough. These are frontline workers trying to support you.
Yes mistakes happen by the pickers and by the person placing the order. If you only order one sprout that is all the are allowed to pick. If they give you more then it counts as one misspick. Whenever I have ordered I always check my order a few hours before the cut off time to double check and look for items they have marked as out of stock. If you don’t do this as advised again this is your fault. But I can give a small tip. If you order expensive, for example toilet rolls. They should not substitute for cheaper. So they come up as an out of stock. If you order a cheaper brand they can substitute for dearer but at not extra cost to you. I hope this helps. If anyone one more I formation please ask.
These people are currently doing a brilliant job under a lot of pressure and I think we should show a little more gratitude.

We had our first delivery this week never again. Delivery was due between 8-9 hadn't arrived by 9.30 spent 40 minutes in a queue to speak to someone. Delivery eventually turned up at 11 am driver explained it had been delivered to wrong house he had gone back picked it up and brought it to us. DH explained there is a pandemic at the moment and we don't want food that's been in someone else's house so please take it away. 3pm a fresh delivery arrived driver drove away before I could check everything now find over £5.00 of items missing however manager had put in something extra for my trouble 50g blackberries ?

I only wish I could get online shopping. I am 79 with asthma and a bad knee, and I cannot get online shopping. You lucky lucky things!

I once had a Chivers raspberry jelly instead of cranberry jelly.

And an entire wheel of brie because the small pack I had ordered was not available. They charged me the same price for it! Family were pretty cheesed out by the end!

Thank goodness for Ocado. Even now substitutions are minimal and always appropriate.

My tesco order is now permanently marked, No substitutions.

My cat food was once substituted for dog food and we don't have a dog but usually I'm pleased with my order. Ithe driver accidently left me a bag of frozen meat that wasn't mine and I rang the shop but they said to keep it as they couldn't take it back once it had been in someone else's house. My 60+ husband was bemused by the chicken dinosaurs he had for dinner that day!

Thank you everyone, I have so enjoyed your stories, you have really brightened up my morning. On the last order I clicked for a kilo of new potatoes, luckily I spotted my mistake when I checked the price, 7p, before I submitted the order. Husband would not have been happy with one potato.

These comments did raise a smile. I've ordered online for about 10 years. Tescos used to send some rather random substitutions,Waitrose were excellent. Most recently I've used Sainsburys and not had a problem ,well until recently! I know Sainsburys are reserving slots based on age on Nectar Card,which I appreciate but frustrating if under 65 and vulnerable. I've managed to get 2 delivery slots randomly from Iceland although I was registered with them. Was very pleased with order. I did contact them to say how much I had appreciated the service and received a lovely email back saying how nice it had been appreciated.
I once ended up with 3 bags of satsumas,that was my fault as clicked to many times. I remember ordering a bag of peas that I thought was good value and it was tiny?

Last time I had a delivery I got a tin of tomato soup instead of a pack of
fresh tomatoes. I've also had a pack of Mars bars instead of a bunch of Bananas, which in all honestly was a nice surprise ?

My SIL works as a delivery driver for Asda and one of his customers had ordered a kettle with his groceries. My SIL was highly mortified to find that he had been given a toaster as a substitute but that was what the picker was told to add by her 'puter!

I an extremely grateful for my Asda weekly deliveries, yes there are usually quite a lot of substitutions, but they are always things I can use usually just a different make.

Size 5 disposable nappies when I ordered size 1. Little one could have worn them as a sleeping bag

I ordered a ready stuffed chicken and got a bag of frozen stuffing balls... serve me right for being lazy!

Last Sainsbury's order husband looked at the bags and asked the delivery driver if that was all. Driver said it was but when we were unpacking we realised that all the dairy products were missing. We were just trying to work out how to contact Sainsbury's when the driver rang to say he'd finished his round and realised that he had one bag left and it was ours.
On another point, can anyone tell me why you can't get greaseproof/baking paper when you can buy everything else for baking? In spite of having their own brand Sainsbury's tell us there are no matches when we try to order some.

I once got a sub of cheese instead of chicken, not bad but I got the chicken as well. No, still trying to work that one out.

We stopped online shopping because of the terrible substitutes, many missing items, short use-by dates and sometimes rotten produce. ASDA once substituted the ordered cat food for dog food - surprisingly enough our cats are still cats! I refused to pay for it and had well fed foxes for a few nights!

It’s become a highlight of the week to see what surprises we get in our delivery. Six pints of milk instead of two? One avocado instead of salad dressing ? A plant pot of chives instead of cheese chive dip ( diy obviously) ! The funniest one was DH crossed out my one small bar of chocolate ration ( I’m desperately losing weight to get out of CV danger zone) and replaced with choc chip cookies ( in his estimation less fattening???) before paying. When the delivery arrived they’d substituted choc chip cookies with a large box chocolates!! I figured a sweet angel did the picking that week!