Supermarkets

Can still sell non essential items like clothes and books. So if a clothes or book shop start selling food can they stay open?

 

Nope. Boris has handed the monopoly on all retail back to his tax dodging mates.

It's unsafe for me to go to an independent locally owned bookshop where I'm likely to be the only person in the shop but it's perfectly find for me to cram into Tesco along with everyone else and buy the same book

 

They don't have shares in independent clothing and book stores so of course not. Supermarkets have never made as much money in a year as this year. Their profits are astronomical.

My favourite thing about supermarkets at the moment is the food packages people have donated in Morrison's. People barely able to scrape together enough to feed their own family but kind enough to spare the very little they have left to help support those that have even less. Go round the back and look at the hundreds and thousands of tonnes of edible, nutritious food that Morrison's are throwing away.

 

They can according to my mate who works for Matalan, they've been selling bog rolls to get round the rules.

 

That's not the company's fault though. Food Safety Laws prevent selling out of date food even if theoretically there's nothing wrong with it. I know they also don't sell anything beyond its best before date but that's purely down to standards

I'm biased but I think Morrisons has done an awful lot throughout. With the discounts offered to farmers, the NHS and now teachers, the doorstop deliveries, literally millions of pounds worth of food they've donated etc

 

But still can't come up with a sensible queuing system!

 

As I told you earlier, it actually benefits my sector massively and on personal level helps to keep me in a job. But given all that, I still think it's both completely wrong and downright stupid.

 

That’s a genuine made-up fact!

 

It is unfair on other shops.

 

Don't know about supermarkets but we serve supermarkets and the company share price has more than doubled.

 

Indeed, the Welsh approach doesn't work either though as stopping them selling none essential items doesn't protect the retailer's that have been shut, it just pushes people onto Amazon.

 

Tesco reported a big rise in profits and because of that they've increased the amount of dividends they're giving out to shareholders. roughly a third of a billion quid in dividends.

 

Is it thrown away or does some of it go to charities, food banks, wherever? Genuine question - I don't know the answer (though I'd hope it does).

 

I hear this response a lot and it always makes me giggle. It just does, sorry. Two or three days before the 'use by' date is about to be exceeded each supermarket knows which products they've overstocked, what isn't going to sell, and, with a pretty accurate modelled estimate, how much isn't going to sell. They know it will stay on the shelves until the date is exceeded, or never even make it the shelves, remaining in stock, and they know they will then throw it out, maybe reduce the price a bit on the last day to try to sell some of it, but not always. They could have given it away when it was still fresh, knowing they wouldn't sell it, but they don't

 

Thrown away, in tonnes

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ine-grocery-shopping-coronavirus-b859236.html

To prove you're not making it up

 

I agree they bon far far too much and it's not just supermarkets either, it's the food industry as a whole.

However one thing that's shocked me in the last couple of years is just how much perfectly good food food banks refuse to accept. And by perfectly good I mean not even at the best before date yet.

 

Why am I not surprised.

 

The whole industry is screwed. We produce tonnes more food than we need to feed the population of the world and millions go hungry. There's all sorts of wrong with that.

 

Thrappo is right that they're legally not allowed to give away out of date food, even when it's clearly fine. But stockists know to a pretty certain degree what won't sell well before it does go out of date.