Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with supermarket

Mythbust supermarket petrol for me, please.

Lorc — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:18:19 -0800

Is supermarket petrol bad for my car? It seems to be common knowledge that supermarket petrol from Tesco, Asda or what have you stations is inferior to the stuff from a "proper" petrol station. That it damages the engine in the long run for any of a variety of vague and poorly explained reasons.

Is there any substance to this idea, or is it just superstition? Googling gave me lots of conjecture but nothing authoritative.

UK-centric in case it matters. Thanks.

That Gruyère is Too Rich for My Pocket

bluefly — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:50:25 -0800

I made this casserole last night for dinner, and it was quite tasty. I'd like to add it into my regular rotation of suppers, but the gruyère cheese is kind of expensive at my local market. Can you suggest a more pedestrian cheese I can use instead? I guess it would have to be something that was similar in hardness/melting point. (Similarity in taste would be nice, but I realize with supermarket cheeses I can't have everything). Also, any suggestions of places to get gruyère cheese at a cheaper price would be helpful (and quinoa for that matter -- although I think if I buy in bulk it shouldn't matter that much).

Ummmm...

the NATURAL — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:47:00 -0800

MarketingFilter: So. . . I made a tacky (yet delightfully unrefined) t-shirt. How do I best sell it online? [Long jump] A couple months back, I was looking to start up my own t-shirt company, along the lines of established companies UNDRCRWN and Pennant Race -- that is to say, a company with heavy sports influence with a sprinkling of pop culture and a dose of societal commentary. Maybe even a No Mas, but less for hipsters and yuppies and more for hip hop heads and anti-establishment people.

So I came up with a name -- ftw. clothing, with ftw being adapted from gaming-talk as for the win, but with the added connotation of f-ck the world. Our poster boy was going to be Rod "He Hate Me" Smart, a one-time kick returner for the Panthers (and other lesser stints).

My flagship shirt? In the spirit of old NBA playoff shirts featuring starting fives, I would have a simple black-on-white colorway and a starting five. But my starting five wasn't going to be a basketball team -- it was going to be related to crack. (Here's where the collective "eep!" comes in.)

Now, you might ask, but why? That's horribly tacky, maybe even not delightfully unrefined, and probably very offensive. And yes, I acknowledge that. It's kind of the point. I wanted a "statement" shirt, one that would make people think -- because really, for middle and upper America, and especially in my home of Hawai'i, crack is something that people think of in abstractions, and ghetto is a term applied to anything sketchy, when really, some of the worst ghettos are terrible things. I wanted a shirt that would put this reality in peoples' faces. In a way, it was like the infamous "Snowman" shirts popular earlier in the decade.

The shirts read:
Pyrex &
The Arm &
The Hammer &
The Spot &
The Raw

I printed them hoping that I'd be able to sell them (via consignment or whatever) in one of the newer less-established boutiques in Honolulu. I approached the one that I thought would give me the best chance, and the manager was totally cool with me -- but because of limited space, he couldn't run the shirt on the store's shelves. But if I showed him a season's lineup of designs, he'd be willing to put me in touch with his industry contacts and maybe I'd get something serious rolling.

After tinkering around and coming up with some designs (some were even pretty good) I realized that I didn't have enough to make a season's worth, probably because it was never my intention to make this my entire career. The manager understood, and encouraged me to give it some more thought and maybe talk to him in the future if I wanted to give it another run.

But now, I have 13 shirts left (I printed 15, thinking that I would get them on shelves, no problem) and I don't really know how to market them online.

They're not made with enough love for etsy, I can't get into supermarket, and I think that on other lesser sites, they'd sell... but probably over an extended period. eBay is a possible strategy, but I'm unsure about how to market them/title them and if they'll sell (and auction fees are preferably avoidable).

So... how do I move these shirts, preferably quickly, preferably digitally? (But any kind of movement is fine!)

(PS. For those of you who sometimes like to dig in OP's past records for dirt/help/what have you, yes, I acknowledged I set off a real sh!tstorm [that I'm just now reading, hey!] with my very first AskMeFi. The lesson, as always: sometimes I'm a real idiot. Sorry if you remember it, and doubly so for the ignorance.)

Thanks.

Help me find an entry-level supermarket job in the UK!

pyotrstolypin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:13:59 -0800

What's the best way to quickly find a supermarket job (shelf-stacking, tills etc.) in the UK? Tesco, Sainsburys, Lidl, Waitrose etc. I want to work at entry level in a supermarket for a few months whilst doing evening qualifications. Shelf-stacking, cleaning, manning tills etc. Most jobs these days are either unadvertised or advertised online. Not these, by the looks of it, with odd exceptions. (Please let me know if I'm wrong or looking in the wrong place!)

There must be plenty of UK Mefites who've done this in their time. What's the best way to apply? Should I write or phone a specific store, or is their a website I've missed (even jobcentreplus doesn't seem to come up with much).

Any advice gratefully received.

Charged too much, how do I get my money back?

altolinguistic — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:01:42 -0800

Charged too much for my supermarket sandwich, what should I do? The other night I stopped at a late-night supermarket to get some shopping on the way home. I paid for my groceries using my debit card, then went to the sandwich kiosk behind the checkouts, as I was hungry.

I didn't have any cash so I paid for my sandwich (about £2.50) using my chip & PIN Visa debit card. It was late and I was hungry so I didn't pay too much attention to the details of the transaction.

Cut to today when I checked my online bank statement, I find two charges from that particular supermarket, one for about £23 (about right for my groceries) and one for £22.50 (which I presume was a mistake in the sandwich transaction).

What are my options? I think I might still have the receipt for the sandwich. I am blaming myself as I didn't pay attention to the amount before entering my PIN, but can I get the supermarket to remedy the error after the fact?

This is in the UK, if it weren't obvious from the way I write and the £ signs.

Supermarket Salt Lick?

Tube — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:24:00 -0800

Are salt licks sold in supermarkets? I have a childhood memory of being in Buttrey's supermarket in Missoula, Montana in the late 1960's and seeing salt licks or "salt blocks" for sale. Though I've traveled throughout the US and Canada, I don't ever recall seeing a salt lick for sale in a supermarket ever again. As I've gotten older, I've began to wonder if this was a false memory.

I understand that small, rural grocery stores might carry such things, but I'm wondering specifically about urban supermarkets.

I think salt blocks are also used for water conditioning, so perhaps that's what I saw, and not a salt lick for livestock.

BTW, the same store had a tube tester...

rot13($real_name)

tmcw — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:35:55 -0800

I'm going to get a 'customer loyalty card' from Bloom's (aka upscale Food-Lion) supermarket. The terms and conditions don't mention anything about the validity of the information, and I know enough about security and datamining that I don't want to distribute that information. Do they have a policy, or is there any way I could get caught using a fake name/address/telephone no, etc.?

Video on how to make your own drugs?

kandinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:13:08 -0800

[YouTubeFilter] Music video of band making illegal drugs from supermarket items? Less than a week ago I saw a video in YouTube in which the members of a band made controlled substances (first some kind of amphetamine, then some quaalude-like downer) from supermarket-bought items like kitty litter and white vinegar.

The video also shows them playing under the influence, with overlaid tags stating the symptoms. It is presented as though it were the documentation for a scientific experiment and preceded by a disclaimer. It is quite fun to watch, and I can't seem to find it again.

Hand-painted supermarket signs

Nancy Lebovitz — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:04:23 -0800

I'm looking for information about big paper supermarket window signs and for images of them, preferably from the 80s or earlier. I'm wondering how they were made (brush lettering, big markers, stencils?) and if there's a standard name for them.

I've been workin' in the dairy, all the livelong day

daninnj — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:48:59 -0800

Why are shopping carts abandoned? Why do people leave unrelated stuff in random aisles? I have worked in the dairy department of a supermarket for the past two years. Sometimes, there would be abandoned carts in my aisle, with some items in it. Not a lot, just a little. In fact, there were two in my aisle today, one there for eight hours and one there for six (I left and they were still there.) Why do people abandon carts?

Also, why do we get random stuff thrown in different places? For example, I find people leave meat by the butter, fruit by the cheese, face cleaning products, etc etc. I can understand people leaving deli (a different department) cheese by our cheese, but two unrelated products together?

Since I'm the last aisle in the store, money's probably a factor ("forgot my wallet, can't buy stuff" or "don't have enough for the meat, and I need butter") but this stuff happens so often that they must be some other reason. It also happens in all the other store's aisles.

Supermarkets and Shopping Cart Liability

clearlynuts — Wed, 17 May 2006 10:28:47 -0800

Why aren't supermarkets liable for damage as a result of their shopping carts? Many years ago, when the first supermarket (a Giant) in my neighborhood to allow shoppers to walk their shopping carts into the parking, they installed specific areas for patrons to return their shopping cart. Oddly, there is still the random asshole who would rather leave their cart in a handicapped spot than return their cart. I digress.

When the other supermarkets in the area followed suit, they did not install the areas for shopping carts in their parking lots. Prominently displayed on the exit doors, though, is the disclaimer that the stores are not responsible for damage to vehicles as a result of the shopping carts.

If my car has been damaged as a result of a shopping cart, it's hard for me to notice between all the paint scratches from people slamming their doors against mine. However, it would seem that if someone had their car damaged because of a shopping cart, it's expressly the fault of the supermarket. Said damage would have happened on their property, inucrred by their equipment, and the supermarket has made the decision to leave their carts in the parking lot.

Is merely stating that they won't be liable for damage make them not liable for damage?

Where do I best find local farmed, relatively humane sources of meat in Los Angeles?

anonymoose — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:27:56 -0800

Where do I best find local farmed, relatively humane sources of meat in Los Angeles? I'm considering adding meat to my diet, but I'd like to avoid factory farming. While I can see labels such as "free-range" in most markets, some research seems to indicate that this means basically nothing (the actual requirement, as far as I can tell, is that the farm open the door to the outside for a nonspecified amount of time, and if no animals choose to go outside, then so be it. Apparently many farms use this definition to increase their prices without really changing much)

Where can I get me a turkey this thanksgiving that was coddled in the arms of children and fairies, sprinkled with pixie dust in fields of blue flowers, lulled to sleep by a magical string quartet every night, and hopefully not had its beak cut off with a hot razor so that it doesnt eat other turkeys?

Behind the Scenes at the Supermarket

kmel — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 08:08:32 -0800

Questions for grocery clerks (or people who stand in line at the grocery thinking about people and their purchases). Seeking anecdotes related to grocery clerking: stereotypes ( _____s tend to buy ____ ), or just unusual or funny purchases and the backstories you make up about people based on them. Also, what do customers do to make your job hell? Conversely, what do they do to make it wonderful?

This is to help me develop a half-baked web project idea ...