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/ck/ - Food & Cooking

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13535044 No.13535044 [Reply] [Original]

I work at Whole Foods ask me anything.

>> No.13535059

>>13535044
Why has WF gone to shit since amazon bought them?

>> No.13535066

>>13535059
because amazon own them

>> No.13535067
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13535067

How do I not become a failure like yourself?

>> No.13535070

>>13535059
It hasn't. I keep hearing this sentiment, but nobody is able to actually word exactly why other than AMAZON BAD.

Quality of product is same as it was a decade ago. Quality of service is more or less the same as it was a decade ago.

>> No.13535103

>>13535044
Do your parents know you're gay?

>> No.13535120

Nobody?

>> No.13535123

>>13535120
Why would think a whole foods employee would have any information we would need?

>> No.13535131

Wow you work at a grocery store?!? Do you get to stock the shelves????

>> No.13535132

>>13535070
Maybe your store is different but the one I go to dropped some of their bulk groceries and reduced staff so the register lines are a lot longer. Also the staff seems surly and act like you're imposing if you ask for assistance nowadays.

>> No.13535133

>>13535123
>can't even write a complete sentence without fucking it up
RETARD ALERT RETARD ALERT
>>13535131
Sometimes. I also get to use the sticker gun.

>> No.13535145

>>13535132
I've worked a bunch of different stores and have seen the variety of bulk slowly going down even before the Amazon takeover. I think outside of a few common, well selling PLUs bulk just doesn't sell well enough to warrant the space and the hassle. They have to be refilled and cleaned regularly, so it kind of makes sense to sack a few lowest selling items for a regular 4 foot set.

>> No.13535160

>>13535132
I can't really speak to the registers aspect of it, not in front end, but you're pretty much always gonna get a skeleton crew of cashiers outside of busiest times/days. The staff being sour just sounds like a store morale issue. Sounds like there are some issues with that store in particular.

>> No.13535168

I'm going to eat the soup right from the ladle and there's nothing you can do to stop me OP

>> No.13535169

Are you gay?

>> No.13535182

>>13535168
Nor would I. Enjoy your second degree burns.

I've seen people grab a slice of pizza or something from the hot bar with their bare hands and then put it back.

Don't eat from any self serve venue, because chances are some old cunt or some child has stuck their dirty fingers in it. That includes the bulk bin in grocery. Also wash your produce. A lot of shoppers go to the bathroom and don't bother washing their hands. Typically older people.

>> No.13535189

wow that's really gay

>> No.13535190

>>13535133
>WAGIE ALERT WAGIE ALERT
what was the point of this thread again?

>> No.13535227

>>13535070
this isn't amazon related per se since it was in the works before the takeover, but in my store i think the OTS system was a mistake. shit is out of stock all the time and customers are pissed about it, you know how they are with special requests and i can't just straight up tell them it's because regional fucked up with their stocking system that's not going away any time soon.

on top of that there was a warehouse fire late last year (marigold warehouse, since i'm in UK region) that meant one of our main grocery suppliers was wiped out for months. obviously i can't blame WFM for that but that combined with the OTS issues fucked us pretty hard in the run up to christmas.

>> No.13535236

>>13535070
Amazon js bad, you dumb consoomer piece of shit

>> No.13535241

Is wholefoods even worth shopping at? The last "fancy" sort of grocer I went to was sprouts, but it pretty much just seemed like any other SoCal chain grocery store.

>> No.13535253

>>13535227
>i think the OTS system was a mistake.
I worked in a region that I think piloted OTS and while there are growing pains, it's actually for the best. Back of house looks much better, more organized and there's just less bloat overall. From my experience, it's generally bottom tier TMs that are usually the issue with OTS. Obviously buying has to be tighter, but when everything is neat and organized it's actually easier and quicker to make accurate orders.

We are experiencing quite a bit of OOS at my store, but that's more due to our main supplier, UNFI dropping the ball lately, not OTS or shoddy ordering.

Any new major change will freak people out, but OTS is actually solid in the long run. People just don't like change and like to complain instead of actually following the plan and doing their best to improve.

>>13535236
I agree. I think Amazon is a shit company overall and it was a huge bummer when I found out they were buying WF. I seldom even order from Amazon because I've been burned by shit product one too many times. Fake reviews and shitty products ruin everything.

With that said, people like to parrot others when it comes to anything negative and I haven't seen WF get considerably worse since getting bought out. Yet. Some things are worse, some things are better. As it always have been. The one constant is people bitching and moaning about everything.

>> No.13535257

Hey, op, I was thinking of making a similar thread but i figure if we combine it we get twice th bumps

I used to work at one of the world's biggest potato chip manufacturing company. Ama
Ill get us started with an interesting fact: no name brands (depending on the store brand but I'm sure the other store brands were made by other big conglomerates) and brand names are made in the same factories with the same potatoes by the same people. Anyone that says the quality is different are consumer fags. The only difference is the recipe for the flavours are patented so we would switch out the seasoning when we turned the line over

>> No.13535277

>>13535241
Depends. Not all whole foods are created equal, some are way nicer and better to shop at, some are pretty shit. I've never been an exclusive whole foods shopper and I do shop around, so I definitely see the difference.

I think there's a lot of overpriced shit that WF sells that you can get cheaper elsewhere. For sure. However, the general experience tends to be a nicer, cleaner and your average employee will be far more knowledgeable and friendly than your average employee elsewhere. Which makes sense because when it comes to grocery stores and even retail in general, it's a better work environment. That obviously costs money which a lot of people seem to think is worth the extra cost sometimes, but WF has always been pretty competitive on a lot of items, especially on commodity items like rice, pasta, bread, milk, eggs, etc and especially since Amazon took over.

There are also some items that I only buy at whole foods like meat and seafood. Other grocery store chains around here just don't compare in terms of quality.

>>13535257
Neat. I worked for a food company for a while as well, so I have some insight into food production as well.
>Anyone that says the quality is different are consumer fags.
This is definitely the case for a lot of store brands, but it's not across the board. Copackers can have different production lines for different retailers and companies can have different standards and sometime even different ingredients that go into one company's product than another's even though they're made under the same roof. It's not always as simple as same product in a different box. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

>> No.13535308

>>13535277
>I think there's a lot of overpriced shit that WF sells that you can get cheaper elsewhere. For sure. However, the general experience tends to be a nicer, cleaner and your average employee will be far more knowledgeable and friendly than your average employee elsewhere. Which makes sense because when it comes to grocery stores and even retail in general, it's a better work environment. That obviously costs money which a lot of people seem to think is worth the extra cost sometimes, but WF has always been pretty competitive on a lot of items, especially on commodity items like rice, pasta, bread, milk, eggs, etc and especially since Amazon took over.
Publix trumps them all.

There's a hard case to be made that people in a store are as nice as the people in that area of the country. Cities can be rude.

>> No.13535320

>>13535308
>are as nice as the people in that area of the country.
There's some truth to that, but I think getting paid above the minimum wage and having a decent work environment is a huge factor. Go to Walmart. Nobody knows anything, everybody is depressed, customer service sucks, there is sometimes piss on the floor.

Publix is pretty solid the couple times I've been, but they're exclusive to southeast at the moment.

>> No.13535336

>>13535320
>>>13535308
>>are as nice as the people in that area of the country.
>There's some truth to that, but I think getting paid above the minimum wage and having a decent work environment is a huge factor. Go to Walmart. Nobody knows anything, everybody is depressed, customer service sucks, there is sometimes piss on the floor.
And, my WalMart is pretty neat, filled with nice people who have been there for years. There's affordable housing where I live now. When I lived in Miami, WalMart was a post-war zone.

It's regional,

>> No.13535341

>>13535277
>It's not true across the board
True I guess with potato chips it's a pretty simple process so there can't be much variation
>Truck comes full of potatoes
>Dumps them onto conveyor
>Workers on the line chop off rotten parts of potato
>They go onto slicer
>Into the fryer
>Into the seasoning troughs
Also, another fun fact: those little dark spots on chips usually aren't burnt pieces, they're bugs that got deep fried into your chip

>> No.13535363

>>13535341
>those little dark spots on chips usually aren't burnt pieces, they're bugs that got deep fried into your chip
I'm calling bullshit on this lol

>> No.13536069

>>13535363
It's true, mate. Not always a bug but you'd be surprised how shitty the potatoes are (even though the company advertises as"best quality potatoes") and there is no way to get bugs out of the taters effectively

>> No.13536325

Which open food item is most likely to be tampered with by staff?

>> No.13536443

>>13535067
What do you do?

>> No.13536555

>>13536069
Can you provide a source for this information?

>> No.13536697

does your store have a dumpster diving problem?

>> No.13536745

>>13536443
Probably fellates the storeroom manager from the sound of it.

>> No.13536906

>>13535044
What region are you in? I'm in SW, it's a fucking shithole. A few months ago when some of the fags from regional came to visit, we legitimately thought a group of homeless vagrants had wandered into the store. Literally a bunch of disgusting hippies.

>> No.13537801

>>13536325
People don't fuck with the food intentionally, at least from my experience, so probably anything prepped in house, unintentionally. People still come in to work when they're sick (I know I have, many many times, unfortunately), so it's not unlikely for a sick person with less than perfect hand washing discipline to handle literally anything in the store. Wash your produce, especially if it's loose. Don't eat from the bars. Cashiers/baggers are also handling all of your food and they handle dirty ass cash and don't have easy access to a hand washing station to use frequently. Hand sanitizer is usually on every register, but that's not mandatory and not all cashiers use them. Again they're also coming in when they're sick.

>>13536697
No, the one I'm in at the moment is deep in the suburbs. It's pretty common for city stores to lock their dumpsters at night.

>>13536906
NA at the moment. Are you surprised some higher ups at regional/central are dirty hippies? Have you seen that fucking old photo where half the male TMs aren't even wearing shirts lol? C'mon.

>> No.13537813

I live in Southern California and walked into a Trader Joe's once. It scared the hell out of me. All blonde white women under the age of 25. It was like Children of the Corn. I was afraid they'd all swarm me and sacrifice me to the salad bar.

>> No.13537822

>>13537801
Have you ever gone on a date with or fucked one of the sexy MILF customers? Half of the time I go to whole foods it's just to stare at the gash

>> No.13537824
File: 103 KB, 960x960, 12705361_468079443395152_8576270981017852092_n.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
13537824

>>13535044
do they make the cookies in store? can we get some recipes?

>> No.13537837

>>13535044
best day/time to get clearanced stuff? esp. eggs and milk

>> No.13537838

>>13537801
I get being really careful if you're dying of cancer or aids or something, but otherwise, it seems really stupid to try to live in a germ-free bubble. I haven't been sick since I was an early teen. The people I've known who get freakish over de-germing stuff get sick at least yearly.

>> No.13537846

>>13537813
Yeah that happens occasionally at TJs. Doesn't sound like a terrible way to go.
>>13537822
I've fucked around with a few customers. A couple fairly older than me, so I guess.
>>13537824
No idea, never been my area of expertise.
>>13537837
Perishables like that don't typically go on clearance. If they are about to go out of code, they'll either be thrown out, donated or culled to another department. I don't know if this is company wide, but most sales changeovers go from Wednesdays through Tuesdays. I don't think there is a best day for discounted eggs and milk because outside of like a new product those typically don't go on sale.
>>13537838
I generally agree, but I also do think that food handlers have a responsibility to keep their shit clean. There are people with compromised immune systems and poor hygiene does cause breakouts of different kinds of viruses pretty often.

>> No.13537957

>>13537801
>Are you surprised some higher ups at regional/central are dirty hippies?
I imagined that after it became a multibillion dollar company that they would at least make their higher ups clean up a bit.

Also John Mackey was supposed to come to our store on multiple occasions. He canceled every time. Have you ever met him?

Also, to anyone else reading-- I work in the Prepared Foods department. Like OP said, don't eat the food from the bars. The majority of the shit isn't even fresh. It's stuff from the chef case/ fresh pack cooler that is about to be "out of date" i.e., 5-6 days old. So you might be getting a deal on that salmon but it's almost a week old.

>> No.13537971

>>13537957
I don't know, man, they tried to keep a lot of the cultural roots intact as they grew, this doesn't surprise me a bit. One of the regional offices I worked out of had one of the former RPs shorts basically framed and put on a wall in one of the conference rooms.

>Also John Mackey was supposed to come to our store on multiple occasions. He canceled every time. Have you ever met him?
No, never gave two fucks about that guy. Did bump into Walter Robb a couple of times and had a quick exchange with him once. If you squint really hard he kind of looks like Bruce Willis. I don't know what his involvement with the company is now since he stepped down as co-CEO a few years ago, but I'm sure he's still around.