RE: The Swan - 2

Bernie

It's a bit like a Lib Dem promise. it don't mean a thing.

Phil

I think the point the labour councillers are making is that the Tesco deal was swung largly by the £1 600 000 donation to comunity projects originally due to be paid as wory commenced but now £300 000 less to be paid on completion . Bernie

So here we are, nearly three years later and the store is open.
An ancient road has been built over, some public parkland has been built over and some nice old trees have been uprooted.
Still, it was all worth it in order to get a large supermarket on Yardley's doorstep.

After the dust settled I gave it a try.
It was marvellous, plenty of space and all nice and new and clean and shiny.
The choices of foods was vast and the quality was good.

Unfortunately, since then it has gone downhill rather noticeably.
Some of the staff are lazy and ignorant, the aisles are constantly blocked by empty boxes, part empty bogies, damaged goods and litter. Even the cleaner sweeps around things rather than pick them up.
The staff have loud chats on various corners and can even be heard to swear.
The fresh food is mostly not very fresh, of poor quality and has very short use by dates.

The rest of the centre is still not fully populated by other shops and charity collectors can outnumber customers at times.

Then Morrisons opened a new store just down the road, so for shoppers with cars there was a shiny new alternative.

After the dust settled I gave it a try.
It was marvellous, plenty of space and all nice and new and clean and shiny.
The choices of foods was vast and the quality was good................

Don't stop going to Tesco's Volty its the only place I can find you on Saturday mornings.

My wife thinks it is her duty to dash along to all these new shops as they open. I have learned to try to avoid going with her because if I do it encourages her to buy even more when she has transport. My problem with these stores is I never know which one I am in, as they are all the same. I have to be honest the only one I ever liked was the first Superstore Carerfour at Minworth but that was only because I could get a pint while the wife shopped with the kids. Though as soon as I discovered they were a French Company I stopped shopping there.

That Carrefour was brilliant. It was years before any of the others even came close.
I used to rent Betamax movies from there. I say rent but actually you had to buy one and then for a fee you could exchange it anytime you like.
When they shut shop I was left with Apocalypse Now, the Brando film. Of no consequence because betamax is long gone.

There are Carrefours all over Spain, they are easily better than any other supermarket I have ever been in, with the possible exception of some in Florida, such as Walmart.
There is even a massive Carrefour in Dubai where enormous samosas only cost 25p each.

Yes I will admit that Carrefour was pretty good and I enjoyed shopping there much more than I do in these new stores.

Phil
You can usually tell if it is a Tesco's by whether a large proportion of the fruit and vegetables are either withered or even partly rotten. Lettuces in particular. I admit this observation was made over 18 months ago as , other than one visit to a small tescos for a can of coke in the hot weather, i have not visited one in more than that time.

I concur Mikejee, just yesterday I had a conversation with someone else who made the exact same remarks in regard to Tesco's fruit and veg.

I'll tell what I have noticed about these supermarkets unless the bread is baked in store then by the time it gets on the shelf it is beginning to go stale. I suppose this id down to the fact that it goes to a distribution centre first and not direct to the store.

At the moment bread is going mouldy long before it goes stale.
It must be down to the weather but I suspect the mould is simply evidence of unclean handling. The warm humid weather then accelerates the growth of a bacterial mould culture.

Perhaps mikejee has some insights on that.

I would think that moist weather would increase the speed that mould growth takes hold. I haven't myself noticed any particular increase. I do think that some bread (Morrisons particularly ) seems to go stale quicker lately. This might be because of the high failure rate of the wheat crop in this country this year. If you want bread not to go stale quickly then a strong flour (means high in gluten I gather) should make up a high proportion of the flour in the loaf. This is more expensive. Once hard flour mainly came from abroad, but in recent years they have found varieties that have flourished here, and a lot of the hard fraction up to this year was home-grown. They might be trying to cut back any increase in price of the loaf by using less hard flour, which would make it go stale quicker. i am also very suspicious of government efforts to produce "healthier " products. A reduction in fat or change of type of fat to try and make it more "healthy" might have affected staling, though this is a just a guess, as I have no direct knowledge of likely effects- just a suspicion of artificial changes brought on. I do know that Mr Kiplings pastry on their bakewell tarts became crumbly and nasty after they replaced the fat they were using with a palm oil. They have slightly improved since then, but now I would be unlikely to buy them ever, whereas i used to like them.

Thank you for that mikejee, as always a knowledgeable explanation reveals so much.
I had no idea the flour was so important regarding shelf life, I just assumed it was fat content only.

Fat content is important also, as is the type of fat. The most efficient type is that which is entirely saturated (that is the sort which health advisors suggest you reduce), which is why i wonder if this might have something to do with it. I domnot have access to any info as to what is now used, so this is only supposition.
I stand by my often stated theory that any recipe change made for health reasons almost always results in a poorer tasting product, as shown by removal of dripping in fish chip frying, reduction of salt in bread and some other products,replacement of butter with margarine/ spreads, removal of fat from beef joints, etc etc
This is not to say that the newer version is not, often, more healthy, though this is not always so. The older margarines containing hardened vegetable and fish oils probably were more harmful than butter, and it is only in the last 10 years or so that this has been accepted by manufacturers.