I’m not entirely sure that consumers did create the demand for out of season fruit and veg. I suspect it was the supermarkets who decided it was a good thing to do in an effort to maximise profits. Whey else would they import cherries from the USA in winter?
These days I suspect many young people have absolutely no idea when various fruit and veg is in season, because most of it is always available in the supermarkets. Those who grow their own and support growers markets have a much better idea of when various fruits and veg will be in season and fresh.
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Hi @gordon, I have to disagree, even if it was the supermarkets that started it, we brought it and continued to buy it. Supermarket purchases are consumer driven - no demand, no sales. I think we have managed to paint ourselves into a corner on this one.
I think the mighty dollar and the need to maximise the number of dollars obtainable by companies led to the demand for produce all year round sorry to say.
@vax2000, of course, that why they’re in business! The supermarkets saw an opportunity and took it. If initially, consumers complained, rather rushing off to buy summer fruits in the winter this would be a non-issue. But if we persist in buying it, they will keep supplying it. It’s all up to the consumer I’m afraid to say.
@Albie Yes that’s right . It is now so entrenched in our buying habits , especially those consumers that are coming after us and know no different , that to think it would ever change to the way it used to be is like chasing that Utopia that does not exist . I’m afraid to say .
@vax2000. So true. Let’s hope some concerted consumer action can bring us a little closer to Utopia🌽
@Albie Here’s hoping mate
I am fortunate to live in a regional area (the Northern Rivers of NSW) where we have farmers’ markets and local fruit & veg retailers who stock from local sources. There is no question that ‘fresh’ is a word that has been hijacked by the food industry and has no real meaning anymore. However, there are communities (and I have lived in some of them) where there are no markets and locals rely on Woolworth’s and Coles. In this context, people should be concerned about what has been done to those fruits and vegetables before they arrive in the supermarket. Berries, for example, are among the most chemical-intensive crops in agriculture. Better to buy frozen organic than ‘fresh’. I have read that with tomatoes, varieties are grown for their hardiness, not their nutritional value or flavor, are harvested green and then gassed on the way to the stores to turn them red. Agribusiness is constantly doing things (Monsanto stands out) to ‘manufacture’ real food by manipulating seeds and crops to maximise production, regardless of the risk to human health. They don’t treat farmers well either. It is such a huge international problem. I believe Australia can still save its food-growing culture by stopping all the funny business and putting safeguards in place for the standards of the foods and the security of the farmers.
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Aye. Supermarkets will make a buck at every opportunity. That’s what they do, and it’s not the problem. The problem is false advertising - calling themselves “fresh food people” etc. If they advertised themselves as the “free food people” they’d probably be stopped from doing it, since it’s blatantly dishonest, but “fresh”, as we know, isn’t defined, so they can get away with it.
Sorry to harp on it, but mandatory “picked on” dates (they’ll never do it volutarily) would solve the problem. People who want to buy 18 month old apples could still do so, but the rest of us could avoid the non-fresh stuff.
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@Fred Keep harping on about mandatory "picked on " dates Fred . Someone will listen … one day . Well it’s a great idea surely there should be some people in the grocery industry with the foresight to see that . Then again , maybe there is not .
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- do you expect the fruit and veg sold through major supermarket chains to be as fresh as the produce sold through independent grocers or growers markets?
Not as fresh as a grower’s market, but certainly as fresh as an independent grocer - they have more resources and make more profit, so surely they can perform at least as well if not better than a small family grocer.
- are there particular fruits or vegetables that repeatedly disappoint you when it comes to quality or freshness?
Apples, tomatoes, asparagus, avocados, pears, strawberries…
Apples frequently look lovely in the store, but when you bite or cut into them you find they are floury or even brown inside.
Tomatoes and pears are picked so green that they are not fully ripe when you buy them, but if you let them ripen at home they last about a day before they start to spoil.
Lately asparagus seems to be past it’s best even in the store, even though it is in season.
I understand that avocados come into Tasmania from interstate, but they are frequently OBVIOUSLY bad on the shelf.
Strawberries spoil within a day or two, even when kept in the fridge.
- which fruits or vegetables do you find hardest to judge quality/ripeness/freshness when buying?
Apples and pears.
Other comments:
I am often surprised at the food which is left on the shelves - yesterday I had to tell a staff member that an entire container of potatoes on display was green (and I mean bright green all over). What concerns me about this kind of thing is that I have good eyesight, but other people’s is often not.
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@kathryn "Potatoes turn green when they’re exposed to sunlight. As the plant prepares for photosynthesis and sprouting (by producing green chlorophyll), it develops a bitter, poisonous chemical (solanine) to discourage hungry animals from eating it. The green colour serves as a warning that toxic solanine is present " Solanine alkaloid is very toxic .
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I have just lost my local fruiterer, and woe is me! I have chooks for the peelings, etc, and even they will not eat supermarket “fresh” produce - nor will the possums who come to steal the chook food. I think that should tell us all something!
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Hi vax2000, yes that’s why I was concerned. I can imagine someone with poor eyesight paying a premium price for these kipflers and not noticing the colour until they washed them, then blaming themselves for leaving them in the light (many people would assume that a store would not sell them like that) and throwing them away rather than getting a refund.
@kathryn I still remember the days when there was a potato box either in the kitchen or just off it . Usually made of wood you filled it from the top and took the potatoes from a draw at the bottom . A piece of hessian or such covered the draw so no light could spoil the potatoes . I remember this at my grandparents house and others . Things have changed so much and not for the better .
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Consumer demand - you mean like having hot cross buns on Boxing Day? haha
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Yes I like to buy the ‘odd’ fruit and veg where possible. Woolworth did offer that too but unfortunately they bagg everything up and it is too much for one person.
I shop once a week and mostly split between Coles and Woolworths. I switched to Coles from Woolworths because the so called ‘fresh food people’ just weren’t. But every week in both stores I am forever pulling rotten fruit and veg off the shelves. Also bagged salad greens are so poorly handled by the staff that they are punched into place therefore bruising the delicate leaves which then rot so when you open them they are quite slimy.
Soft fruit like stone fruit and berries don’t last long at all - not more than a day or two.
I know what to look for when choosing fruit and veg for ripeness but smell is something that is getting more difficult. Much like few flowers have any perfume these days as they have been propagated for colour, fruit and veg generally lack flavour as others have said, floury apples, dry pears, etc. My other pet hate is the water spraying of veg with water and packing on ice supposedly to keep it fresh. All it does is wet the produce that you then put in a bag and a day later it has gone mouldy.
I notice the fruit & veg are better at the supermarkets now that the temperature is nudging 40 degrees C. The “farmer’s market” outlets are in non air-conditioned buildings / sheds and starting to fade quickly. The exception is a fruit barrow at the farm, where they replenish the freshly harvested stock from cool stores constantly during the day, but limited to what they grow (pineapple, mango, lychee, tomato, water melon).
The worst is the mobile barrow (two enclosed tin trailers) who buy seconds from who-ever, sometimes 100’s of km away, call some of it “organic” and call all of it “fresh local produce” mostly unlabelled. Even the shop assistants stand outside until you want to pay. They rely on passing highway trade and signs saying “Mangos $10 a Tray” (a tray is usually 24-30 mangos), by the time they pull over to discover a “tray” is a small foam rectangle with 1 to 3 mangos, they are committed to buying something.
I did a look through Coles, I usually don’t go anywhere near the big supermarkets, and was pleased to see stock in reasonable condition. Mostly thanks to air-conditioning. Our Foodworks is tiny & IGA is a small shop with limited fruit & veg, and didn’t look like you could buy family size quantities - eg only 4 cabbage quarters, single bananas, about 10kg of loose spud. I grow most of my own, but the heat has killed off some types. Hence the supermarket visit.
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We’ve just moved house, and have discovered that our new local Woolies is in the middle of Boganville. What a difference to the fresh produce section. Lot’s of empty space and hardly any fruit and veg on display at all. Meanwhile there are large, extra long aisles dedicated one each to chocolates, chips, lollies and soft drinks. I guess they cater for the majority of the shoppers who in this case simply don’t buy fruit and veg and instead pig out on junk. There’s a local Coles a bit further out from the Bogan area and it seems to be populated mainly by older, retired folk. It’s the exact opposite of the Boganville Woolies. Plenty of fresh produce, that’s actually fresh for a change, and hardly any junk snacks or drinks on the shelves at all. No prizes for guessing where we’ll be doing our first big shop at since the move.
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