My Goat

[Nuts]

Well... What has my goat is Coles supermarket....
I buy a lot of groceries each week and although have noticed the decline in brands for a long time, it is starting to get really scarry....
Today, dried beans were gone, the brand of pesto vanished. I went to choose some paper towels. There were isles of 'Handee' brand and one shelf with Coles brand...Nothing else....
Tuna steaks in packets, gone... dried peas and corn gone....
I'm sure the list goes on... If I notice things like this chances are that the situation is now chronic. It actually seems quite bizzare, what happens to these companies?
Surely (if I can) everyone can see that the next move (following market dominance) is price skimming... how much 'we' can be pushed before complaining, how much further till 'we' actually do something about it..

Doing my little bit, I now refuse to buy coles brand... I realise that the partners they deal with must have few scrouples but this is all i can think of so far (except I'm going to dry some beans, peas and corn )

[Ent]

Content removed by poster

Last edited by Ent on Wed 17 Nov, 2010 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[corvus]

Well... What has my goat is Coles supermarket....
I buy a lot of groceries each week and although have noticed the decline in brands for a long time, it is starting to get really scarry....
Today, dried beans were gone, the brand of pesto vanished. I went to choose some paper towels. There were isles of 'Handee' brand and one shelf with Coles brand...Nothing else....
Tuna steaks in packets, gone... dried peas and corn gone....
I'm sure the list goes on... If I notice things like this chances are that the situation is now chronic. It actually seems quite bizzare, what happens to these companies?
Surely (if I can) everyone can see that the next move (following market dominance) is price skimming... how much 'we' can be pushed before complaining, how much further till 'we' actually do something about it..

Doing my little bit, I now refuse to buy coles brand... I realise that the partners they deal with must have few scrouples but this is all i can think of so far (except I'm going to dry some beans, peas and corn )

Woolies dont have the Tuna Steaks in the foil pack eigther however they do have Frozen Tuna Steaks that you could cook and and use that machine of yours to vac pak them .
They also have dried peas and corn various dried beans lots of choices in paper towels and at least 4 choices of Pesto ,Nuts you need to break a habit and change to Woolies,their meat is even better than Coles,if you need a mentor in Woolies shopping PM me and I can assist and enlighten you.
Now retired can spend lots of time in Supermarkets checking out things
corvus

[Nuts]

I do wander over to woolies now and then... havent for a while but may be time again.

They never stocked the tuna steak (which was the last time i 'crossed the floor')

I know these concerns are driven by the 'ma and pa' shareholders out there but the irony...

(The upside is that I have been forced to get to know the dehydrator better....continental (1L) cream of mushroom (gone), i'm thinking 'how hard can that be? ' dried mushroom, onion, salt, cornflour, powdered milk....?....)

A butcher once informed me about the old practice of soaking meats (adding weight) I did a bit of experimenting with his and that bought at the supermaket... After drying the same quantiies for the same amount of time there was consistently 15-20% less 'beef for your buck'.... I always buy from the butcher...

[Nuts]

*I do like the 'price per quantity' they have been forced to adopt....

(now where is that one finger salute icon they have on that other forum?... )

*I'm also keeping my eye on another product. The bottom shelf was replaced with home brand last week, now the second... I'm thinking 'so that's how it works huh!' 'they bring it in all slowly, from the bottom, where its not noticed (at first)....' 'all 'sneaky' like'

[ILUVSWTAS]

I used to be a manager at Coles. I was always told I HAD to stock the "you'll love coles crap even though it ALWAYS ended up as waste! never sold!! Had to get rid of my good selling products just to stock that type.

Seems it's only gotten worse in the last 12 months.

they are evil make no mistake! Shop elsewhere whereVER you can!!

Last edited by ILUVSWTAS on Thu 19 Nov, 2009 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[corvus]

Mate not to sure what you are lacking on your shopping excursions however that can be forgiven as you are sill just a young man and can learn
corvus

[Macca81]

you will be pleased to know i bought the foil packaged tuna steak from woolies just a few days ago

but, as a general rule, i try to avoid shopping at both woolies and coles as much as i possibly can! meat comes from butchers, fruit and vege comes from places like hillstreet grocers and now that the farmers market has opened up down here that has become a good place to go also.

woolies gets me in on 2 things, it is under a minute drive from home so it is good for when i need something right now, and it has things that are harder to get from more specialised shops such as dried foods(surprise peas, pasta, mushrroms etc[i do intend to get a dehy of my own to aleviate this issue...]) and dogfood id almost always easier to get from the supermarket.


out of principal, when i do shop at these places, i NEVER EVER buy homebrand. EVER!

[stepbystep]

Yeah, I have this goat too....

Buy meat at butcher, veges at green-grocer, groceries from the local independent supermarket.
We do maybe 10% at C or WW.
Booze is a problem......the evil empire controls most bottle-o's
Stationary - same deal, hardware - ditto, did me mention petrol

Anyone see 60mins last night on the state of piggeries etc?
Myself and a friend are working with Emma to fight these soulless *&%$#! that care for nothing but profit margins.
The supermarkets aid and abet all of these practices, every animal and plant product has a moral choice behind the purchase, please choose wisely.
Inform yourself as to what the animal was fed, how it was sheltered, how old it was allowed to live, the provenance of the breeds genetics.
Yeah, it's hard, time consuming, but rewarding.
The sad thing is, there are very few public institutions/industries where we can just take there word as gospel....such is life.
I would like anyone that watched that to know, the vision screened on Ch 9 was nothing compared to what I have seen, and the practice is rampant.

Everyone cries out for the poor farmer.....sorry but anyone that can't show compassion for another living creature deserves to be sent broke!
De-nuding the landscape of trees, to get the highest number of 'head' on a property has exacerbated drought conditions here and on the mainland, I'm sure you know the issues.
As far as I'm concerned if a farmer can't open his mind and move forward, then they're in the wrong business.
Politicians won't act, until the consumers stand up, when half the farms are shut down, then and only then can we start again.

Enjoy your bacon sarnie....if it's free range

Here endeth the diatribe. Need to go for a walk.

P.S. I'm not vegetarian.

[Macca81]

Booze is a problem......the evil empire controls most bottle-o's

home-brew is your friend! i have not paid for commercial booze for some years (an evening at the pub as an exception, they frown upon people bringing in their own grog...)