Grey says:

This absurd Bumblebee Tuna display was jutting into the isle at my local Safeway. It had a black screen, single silver button, and a card stock sign demanding I "push the button." Out of nothing more than utter disbelief and morbid curiosity I bow to the will of the sign.

"Will it start talking to me, the grocery store shopper?" I wonder. "Perhaps it will suggest some Tuna-themed dish for me to prepare for dinner tonight?" No. Instead I see the lowest resolution version of some 30 second, made for TV ad I'd ever seen.

When it stops it goes black, waiting for the next passerby to cave to the demands of the card stock sign. No coupons. No cooking ideas. No direct engagement with the shopper. Just the same, unimaginative advertising penetrating deeper into our everyday experiences - as if the market isn't saturated enough. I don't know how this could possibly be effective, but apparently they think it will be.

At least the damn thing isn't auto-play. I hope someone figures out a way to hack these things and deliver and useful, informative, or somewhat interesting message on one of these.

Maybe you should go back see what it looks like when you put the sunglasses on.

He writes:

It seems like every time I am in my local Vons store in Grover Beach, CA I get to the register, and am asked by the cashier if I would like to donate XX amount of cents to (insert charity name here). They basically ask you to round up to the nearest dollar and donate that amount. Now, their charities are always large, reputable, and worthy causes, but it just seems like a really pushy tactic for getting donations. This was really getting to me a couple months ago, but it stopped for a while, and has now just started again.

I'm really not sure if they realize it or not, but putting someone on the spot to donate money when there are 4 or 5 people in line watching you kind of makes you feel cornered. I mean, when you only have a couple pennies coming back to you and you decline to donate it, as I usually do, you can't help but feel like people are thinking you're kind of an ass, but oh well. I'd like to think that's not Safeway's intent here, but it just really rubs me wrong.

Have you guys ever heard of this happening with other stores, or had any tips about it? I'm curious to find out if the other readers are getting hit up for money like they do here at my local store. I'm also going to send Safeway an email to let them know how I feel, since I'd like to hear from them how they decided to go about getting donations in this way.

None of my local stores do this—they'll often be selling little certificates, or pet stores will ask to donate $1 to a shelter, but it isn't as frequent or pushy as Dustin describes. Perhaps this particular store/chain have incentives for the cashier or store that raises the most money?

What are your experiences with fundraising at the checkout, as consumers and as store employees?

(Photo: wbeem)

When she contacted Consumerist a few weeks ago, I urged her to get in touch with local news media and perhaps some Safeway executives. She did, resulting in government inspections and a Baltimore Sun story. So how did things turn out? Is Safeway taking it very seriously?

Um, no. Esther wrote to us last night:

We'll see how long it takes...on Monday I stopped in and the inspector was back at the store...and EVERY yogurt I saw was expired. Obviously the first warning didn't affect them lol..I miss eating yogurt:)

Keep fighting the good fight.

Carney Safeway selling expired dairy products: Naughty Business of the Week [Baltimore Sun]

“The average person goes shopping for 22 minutes,” said Phil Lempert, who edits Supermarketguru.com, a Web site that tracks retail trends. “You can’t see 30,000 or 40,000 products. We are moving into an era when people want less assortment.”

"Miles of Aisles for Milk? Not Here " [New York Times]
(Photo: Getty)

The manager hinted that this was a liability issue, but it sounds to us like Safeway's employees have decided to play morality police instead of following the actual rules. Daniel sums up the problem:

The bottom line is that walking into a store and leaving without purchasing anything should never necessitate showing an ID. This policy creates that scenario and does not in any way prevent underage drinking. Loss of freedom and no added prevention. Lose-Lose.

Here's the letter he tried to send to Safeway, but they don't provide an email address on their website or in their press releases. (You can find phone numbers and a mailing address for Safway here, Daniel.)

Yesterday I decided to purchase a six pack of beer. Sure, there are liquor stores near me, but Safeway happens to be about a block from my house. So my brother and I, who recently turned 21 and promptly lost his ID, walked the fifty yards to Safeway. Upon arriving at the register with beer in hand I was asked for my ID, not a problem. The clerk then asked for my brother's ID. My brother had not touched the beer, nor had he handed me money, etc. I was taken back, after all I had made this exact purchase with my brother a handful of times already and had never been asked for his ID. I told the clerk this and he said that it was Safeway policy to ask for his ID. Needless to say we walked out of Safeway, sauntered across the parking lot and paid the same price for the same six pack at a convenience store - with no hassle.

Still irked by this today, I decided to stop by Safeway and see if I could find out exactly what the policy was. After speaking with the manager of the Safeway I walked away with a clearer view of the policy. The policy is, at the discretion of the clerk, to check the ID every person present. An additional reason, as the manager explained to me, was one of liability.

On the surface this sounds like a reasonable policy. However, upon further thought, it is far from reasonable.

To begin with, checking the ID of every person present does not stop underage drinking. Hell, the manager himself suggested I have my brother wait outside next time. Also, I'm pretty sure that if the clerk asks for ID and I show it to him, the liability of the store stops right there. To say it does not means that Safeway is responsible for what I do with the beer after I buy it.

The main reason this upsets me is the need for someone that isn't buying anything to show ID. If a mother and her prepubescent son walk into Safeway and she buys a case of beer, do you card the son? Clearly (I would hope) not, because there is no indication that the son is going to be drinking the beer. I'm interested, based on appearance alone - what criteria do you use to decide if that person with the alcohol purchaser is going to be consuming it? If my underage Mormon friend, who doesn't drink alcohol, tags along for the purchase am I to be denied buying alcohol? There are all sorts of scenarios that can be described that destroy any sound purpose for this policy.

The bottom line is that walking into a store and leaving without purchasing anything should never necessitate showing an ID. This policy creates that scenario and does not in any way prevent underage drinking. Loss of freedom and no added prevention. Lose-Lose. You're also losing all of my business until I have in writing that his policy has been revoked.

If even the manager acknowledges that it's a trivial "security measure" that a customer can get around so easily, why not just put an end to it?

(Photo: Getty)

While shopping at Safeway today I noticed something odd about the "O" Organics Milk. After I listened to a mom tell her daughter she buys "whatever is on sale" I went to purchase my own milk and realized that's not such a good plan. A half gallon was on sale for 2 for $7. Or if your a savvy shopper you could buy a gallon for $6.59. The Safeway website confirms it.

In other news, damn, organic milk costs $6.59 a gallon now? No wonder everyone has been so grouchy lately.

Jim writes:

A visit to my local North Texas Tom Thumb store on Wednesday revealed the latest target of the Grocery Shrink Ray: Lucerne Yogurt. Thankfully the stockers were helpful enough to place the new 6oz size right next to the 8 ouncers, which I'm willing to bet are not long for the shelf. Note that the 8oz size is "REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE". Lovely.

Quick, grocery products, cower behind the dressing or ice cream while there's still time!

Dear Consumerist,

I've become an addict of the site lately, so when I had an experience today that seemed ripped from your headlines, I had to share.

As a recent vegetarian, I've taken a liking to Yves vegetarian meat-substitute slices, which I've been purchasing at my neighborhood Safeway at Westlake Mall in Daly City, California. The only thing I don't love about them is that if I take a break from eating sandwiches for a week, I often return to them to find they've gone bad, even if the package is unopened. So knowing that they have a rather short shelf-life, I thought today to check the expiration date before putting the product in my cart. Imagine my surprise when I found the package in my hand had expired over a month ago—18 April '08! I remarked about it to my family, and nearby customers were also disgusted. A quick rifling through the rest yielded four more expired packages, all dated May 21. Keep in mind that these dates say "Use by" and not "Sell by," so it's fair to expect at least a week or two of "usability" after you buy it before it expires.

I went to the front of the store, waited for ten minutes at the "Customer service" counter and asked for a manager. At a nearby checkstand, some kind of assistant manager answered their page, saying that "Christopher" was on break, and asked what she could do to help. I showed her the expired fake meat and expressed my displeasure, noting that the non-expired portion of product on the same shelf had expiration dates as late as mid-July, meaning that this food by my calculation had probably been on the shelf since late February, and obviously no one had checked the dates since April 18 at the earliest. She sympathized with me and apologized, but did not hint at offering me any compensation for almost selling me food that was without a doubt unfit for consumption, nor for doing the store employees' job for free by finding all the expired packages for them. She did promise, at my request, to speak to the person responsible for checking the dates in that area.

Upon checkout I used the same checkstand with the manager-type to see if she would address the issue properly and she asked me if I'd selected any of the same product, because she wanted to give it to me for free. I did in fact, so I received my one package of "bologna" for free.

In addition to this Safeway's constant ineptitude at keeping even the simplest products in stock (such as green onions), finding so much expired food so easily seems to tell me that I should probably stay away from this store as much as I can, despite it being so conveniently located. Even though I've been shopping at Safeway stores as long as I've been shopping, I think this might motivate me to check out their only supermarket competition in this town, Lucky. I'm certainly going to try to do as much of my shopping as I can at the also-nearby Trader Joe's, which has never disappointed me, and whose staff are always plentiful, alert and helpful.

I'm not sure what kind of response it would have taken to completely satisfy me and make me happy to return to their store after what I just saw, but the $2.99 discount didn't exactly cure my blues 100%. Maybe having the manager send someone immediately to check that whole shelf while I observed, and a 10% off certificate for my whole order that day would have told me they really cared. And it would only have cost them $10 since my total was $100. But hey, I'm not telling them how to run their store, I'm just telling my fellow readers how they do run it so you can make your grocery decisions accordingly.

Thanks for helping me share my story,

-Daniel

Daniel's story illustrates the importance of checking food expiration dates since grocery stores often lose track of their expired inventory. These dates can play a larger role in imitation meat products because unlike real meat, these types of products often don't change color or produce any strange smell after the "use by" date. According to the USDA, a "use by" date is a date established by the manufacturer that guarantees the product is at peak quality, therefore some products that have expired can be usable for a few days after if stored properly under 40F. Could someone safely consume 1-month-expired imitation meat? Unfortunately, we couldn't find anyone to volunteer for that test.

Food Product Dating [USDA]

I thought that the long lines and the produce always being out of stock was bad enough, but then I noticed the small family of birds living at my local Safeway (Nutley St, Fairfax, VA). I wrote a letter to Safeway's corporate offices about a week ago to complain about the poor state of the store, but I guess that management really doesn't care enough to act quickly. My question is, if there's no birdbath inside Safeway, then where do the birds bathe?

We can't imagine a more perfect bird sanctuary than a supermarket: plenty to eat in produce, "rainfall" every day, and no predators. At least not at this Safeway.

(Photos: josecmelia)

(Thanks to DoIReallyNeedAUserName!)

I went to my local Safeway today and picked up a package of Boboli bread that had a $1 off coupon attached. I made a mental note to remember to remove the sticker and hand it to the checkout clerk, but forgot.

She was bagging my purchases when she saw the coupon (after I had already paid by credit card.) She removed the coupon, reached in the drawer and handed me a dollar bill. It's my neighborhood store that I've been going to for years and, I guess I don't have to add, I will continue going for years to come with thoughtful service like that.

(Photo: mattieb)

They both determined that an electronic device had been put above the actual credit card reader. It was a device that was used to scan someone's credit card when they swiped it through the slot. They were able to take the device off of the box and turn it over to the deputies on scene. The device was taken into evidence for processing.

At this time, this is the only report that detectives have received about this type of device being attached to a DVD rental box in the county. Deputies did check out other businesses close by and did not find any other of these devices.

Sheriff Weaver as well as the detectives who handle these types of identity theft cases want to remind citizens to be extra careful when using credit cards at these types of unmanned machines.

This could apply to ATM's, automated fuel station pumps, DVD rental boxes, vending machines, concert or event type machines, or any other machine that may ask you to scan your credit card without actually dealing with a clerk or employee.

Aurora's Platteville farm contains 1,075 milking cows on 500 acres. While Aurora doesn't have a specific percentage for how much of its cows' diet comes from grass instead of feedlot grain, its goal is to have pasture comprise at least 30 percent during the typical May through September pasture season, said Clark Driftmier, Aurora's vice president of marketing. Aurora milks its cows two or three times a day.

By comparison, Jim Greenberg's central Wisconsin dairy is considered large for a family- run farm with 500 cows on 1,000 acres of pasture. His cows receive 70 percent of their diet from grass during grazing season, which typically lasts from the first of May to the first of November. He milks his cows twice a day, saying three times a day would move them off the pasture too much.

Aurora produces the same amount of milk as 300 average Midwestern dairy farms, said Greenberg, who employs five family members and eight others.

Since Aurora started, "I've heard more people voice skepticism about organic milk and how well the standards are enforced," he said. "They say if it's going on at such a large scale, people lose confidence whether it's really organic."

For Aurora's Retzloff, that criticism over scale goes to the heart of the controversy, and he says the company doesn't get any credit for the benefits its size can bring. He points to Aurora's efforts to recycle the farm's plant and water waste, use wind power at all of its farms and offices, and offer bilingual classes, health benefits and subsidized housing for farm workers.

Huge dairy doesn't fit organic image [Rocky Mountain News]
(AP Photo/Steven Senne)

According to the USDA one "organic" milk producer that supplies milk to Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and Safeway has been cutting corners.

From Fortune:

Aurora Organic Daily, a private company based in Boulder, Colorado, says it never broke any rules. But Aurora, which operates large-scale organic farms in Colorado and Texas, signed a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, promising to clean up its act.

"We're doing a transformation - cows reduced, pasture increased, all animals organic from birth and a significantly increased commitment to research," says Clark Driftmier, vice president of marketing at Aurora.

An Aurora farm in Plattsville, Colorado, for example, which once had as many as 4,200 cows, will reduce that number to 1,250, even as most of the farm's buildings and paddocks are torn down to create more pasture land.

"These were blatant violations," says Mark Kastel [spokesperson]. "What did they think, that we'd just fallen off the turnip truck? It was almost insulting."

According to the USDA, the milk producer in question had racked up a bunch of violations including "failing to provide cows with access to pasture, introducing conventional dairy cows into organic milk production too quickly, buying non-organic bedding for its cows and not keeping proper records."

An organic milk ripoff [Fortune]

A quick warning for those in the Sunnyvale, CA area buying Red Baron frozen pizza: Don't.

They were on-sale —- three for $9.99. My roommates and I (tricked by the xxx for xxx sale) grabbed three.

Opened one box and found it to be a deformed pizza.

Hmm. The machine couldn't make this pizza properly, we thought. No worries, let's try the next box.

Each box was subsequently worse off than the next. One of them (the one that looks like it's half-eaten) has some mysterious weird red/black dark matter embedded into the pizza. Uh, cool? Extra toppings?

Safeway was cool though, they promptly offered an exchange or refund. We took the refund.

-Miller Ground Beef Chub 80% Lean

-Regular Ground Beef 73% Lean

-Regular Ground Beef 73% Lean Extreme Value

-Lean Ground Beef 80% Lean

-80% Lean Ground Beef Market 20% Fat

-Lean Ground Beef 80% Lean Extreme Value

-Lean Ground Sirloin

-Leanest Ground Beef 93% Lean

-Lean Ground Sirloin Extreme Value

-93% Lean Ground Beef 7% Fat Extreme Value

-85% Lean Ground Beef 15% Fat Extreme Value

-80% Lean Ground Beef Market 20% Fat Extreme Value.

Remember: Freezing does not kill e. coli. Don't risk it. If you have questions, call 1-800-SAFEWAY. —MEGHANN MARCO

Safeway recalls some beef products [BusinessWeek]
(Photo: Spidra Webster)

"So if I were thinking of buying a pre-packaged dinner, Safeway is NOT the place I'd go ever again," says Doug.

Indeed, this is gross and you should return the items to the store and ask for a refund. Bring along the pictures you provided to us and we posted inside.

Next time, however, check the expiration dates before you enter the checkout line. They're there to protect you. Use 'em. &mdash BEN POPKEN

" Supermarket operator Safeway Inc. said Tuesday its Blackhawk Network unit agreed with McDonald's Corp. to sell the burger chain's prepaid shopping cards.

Safeway said it will sell the Arch card in 1,500 U.S. locations, including its brand-name subsidiaries such as Dominick's, Vons and Tom Thumb."

It's a trick questions as both were bought on the same date but one was dosed with carbon monoxide (CO), a technique that's angering consumer advocacy groups.

Supermarkets are trimming out their in-store butchers and buying pre-packaged cuts direct from the processing plants. The increasingly widespread use of "modified atmosphere packaging" replaces the oxygen inside with other gases, especially CO. Doing so makes the meat rosier.

Customers buy meat mainly on how it looks. Better looking meat has a longer purchasability.

Among the bigger supermarkets reported to carry the treated meat are Safeway, SuperTarget, and Walmart. In some of the Walmart packages one finds ground plastic shards which after being pieced together read, "Hello! My name is Fran! How may I help you?"

"Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, says one study found that when meat in modified packages that included carbon monoxide was stored at 10 degrees above the proper temperature, salmonella grew more easily."

Read more:

FDA Is Urged to Ban Carbon-Monoxide-Treated Meat [Washington Post]
Which Cut Is Older? (It's a Trick Question) [New York Times] (Thanks to Sara!)