If it's not fresh, it's free

We did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday. It's a fairly stressful thing for us! Even though we know to expect it, we're still getting sticker shock every time we come back to Canada. 

So on Thursday evenings, the local store flyers are issued. Some are done online, but we can still pick up the paper versions down at the mailbox at the corner. Ruth prefers the old style paper one rather than the online one.

We always shopped the flyers when we had a normal life living in one spot, but it's not so easy to do as travelers. When we come back to Canada and are staying in one place for a while, we get back into the habit.

Anyhow, yesterday we went out and did our grocery shopping at five different stores. Fortunately we didn't have to do much extra driving... they were all within 2 kms of each other.

As we're walking into the "Your Independent Grocer" (a franchise operation headed by grocery giant Loblaws here in Canada) they have this big sign stating "If It's Not Fresh, It's Free."

I didn't really think much of it until we picked up a bag of grapes and the ones at the top part of the bag were not in very good shape. Upon closer inspection, you would probably have to dispose of 25% of the bag. So we searched the other bags, and found some decent ones. But I started to wonder what exactly the sign at the entrance meant.

So I went to customer service and asked, and the girl said that only applies to product that you have bought and taken home. She called the manager over, and I explained about the grapes. She said "oh you're right, they don't look very good" and she took them to the office and apparently spoke to the franchise owner. She came back to tell me that I was welcome to take the bad ones out and that I could keep them for free.

I literally laughed out loud.

Too funny.

Back in the produce section, Ruth showed me the cauliflower. At $5.50 CAD ($4.00 USD) for a small head. They were all turning brown. We might have paid $1.50 for it and cut out the bad bits.

This morning, I googled their phrase "If it's not fresh, it's free" and came across the Loblaws news release from last year when they started this program. Sure enough, if you buy a product and get it home and you're not happy you can return it where they will replace the product and give you your money back.

It also says "Once on shelf, store teams are committed to routinely checking stock throughout the course of the day to ensure it stays fresh for customers." Which obviously wasn't happening at this particular store. So I sent them an email and told them my story. We'll see what happens. They'll probably send me a $5 off coupon.

Oh, and another thing.

One of our purchases yesterday was a four pack of boneless skinless chicken breast. I did up two of them on the Weber grill in the evening. They were tough and stringy and chewy. I phoned them up this morning and if I bring back the remaining two and the original packaging and receipt they will give us our $14 back!

I think more people need to fight back against bad quality food.

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