Serve yourself options at grocery stores

We were recently at a huge, new grocery in a nearby city. One of the features was an olive bar--stuffed olives, Kalamata olives, salt-cured olives--they all looked delicious and were in open bins with slotted spoons and plastic containers for your purchases.
However, a lady with three children pulled her grocery cart up to the bar and proceeded to reach into the olive bins with her bare hands, and feed olives to her children. She would pop an olive into one child's mouth and then reach into the bin to get another to feed another child. Needless to say, I was completely put off and decided to only buy olives in a jar.
Do your grocery stores have these open bars of products, and if so, what do they do to keep them sanitary? I'd like to make a suggestion to this grocery so I wouldn't be getting kid slime along with my olives.

 

Yucky! I never buy anything that's in the those bulk bins. I'm even leary of salad bars in restaurants. Pre-packaged please.

 

Jane, I feel your revulsion....GROSS! what to suggest? maybe an attendant at the bar? Put it in the deli area? Not really a serve yourself bar....an ask for it or a sample type bar.

I remarked kind of "tongue in cheek" to a young man "sampling" the grapes in the produce section one evening, that "I think they want you to pay for those before you consume the whole bag"...boy oh boy did he snarl at me...I just laughed, but I feel for the stores who have these customers do this (and they are habitual "samplers" of the merchandise). I don't think you can change the people who do this, they are "entitled" to try them first, you know?. maybe they should surcharge the person at the check out.

 

Nope I don't buy out of bulk bins either. We have "The bulk Barn" here and no way would I purchase food stuff. I will buy some candies if they are pre-wrapped.

 

I guess it depends on the overall clientele and store management of whole food areas. I buy spices and brewers yeast from the whole foods bins. The olives, and salads are in the deli in all the stores where I shop, and they always have prepackaged of the same goods also. I buy the prepackaged. There is also store personnel monitoring in those areas so I have never seen or suspected problems. Never use restraunant salad bars though because of an incident from 20 years ago.

 

Usually (just to avoid this exact same thing), nearly all grocery stores here opt not to sell anything in open bins.

However sometimes, (like on special holiday occasions, or to promote some new product) there may be some open bins too. But with this comes the general rule, that if anybody is caught eating anything inside the store, then he or she (regardless if it is a child or an adult) will have to pay double of it's face value.

The store detectives too get a lot of incentives here for catching such people (perhaps that is why they'll charge you double, to pay the detective). So that usually keeps everyone from eating anything while shopping. And nowadays there are CCTV cameras everywhere. So whenever such a person reaches the checkout counter, they automatically get slapped with this penalty!

Of course, then there are some people who would like to rebel from such a "totalitarian" and "sterile" society. Like in Singapore, many such anti-social people (as a form of protest) urinate in elevators. Which is why the authorities have now been forced to install hidden cameras in public elevators too. So when such an offensive person is caught, they take over the lift's controls, and call it to a floor of their own choosing (where security personal will be waiting)!


http://news.insing.com/tabloid/dirty-li ... d-f5713f00

But I guess no matter how hard we try to curb bad habits in public. A certain element of society will continue to upset and challenge the orderliness which we create... So I guess it's something that we inevitably will get to see sooner or later.

 

Over here in Romania, such products are always served and measured by staff.
They are always behind glass so people can't reach.

 

OMG! I have never seen such a thing!!! I can't even imagine what I would say to someone if I saw that, but I can tell you it would be LOUD and full of bad words!
We do have an Olive bar set up near the bread section of the local grocery store. I can't remember ever seeing any one actually USING it, but I do know that we rush past it because it stinks like ... well, OLIVES! No one here eats olives and so we don't like the smell.
We do, however, use the Bulk Barn. Ours is a very clean store and they have a lot of attendants in the aisles so there is no funny business.

 

Ugh! I hate when people stick their paws where they dont belong! I work at a grocery store and see it all the time. Id have said something not very nice haha Sometimes, customers will want a cookie for their kids (we give out free cookies for them) and instead of asking us to get one, if they know where the tub is they'll just grab one themselves, not even using the wax paper we provide *eyeroll* And dont even get me started on the donut case! People do use the wax paper there, but a lot of times, they'll grab a donut, change their minds and put it back with the paper still stuck to it. Gross. And some will fill a bag with donuts, then decide they dont want them and leave them sitting there like they think someone else will take them. Nope! I grab em and throw them away.

 

Bip, I hadn't thought of the "paws" from an employee's point of view. I can see why it would be as disgusting to an employee as it was to me to see that woman dipping into the olives.
I have sent a suggestion to the home office of the grocery that they either station staff at the olive cart, or move it to the deli where staff can serve the types and amounts requested.
I agree with the rest of you that buying from the bulk bins can be risky.
Jewell, I agree about salad bars, and also self-serve buffets. I left a restaurant once after I saw a man serve himself a vegetable, taste it, then put it back. On my way out I suggested that the tray the vegetable was on be pulled, but I doubt if that happened.
I swear I'm not a picky eater (if it isn't moving, I'll eat it) but I do have some standards of cleanliness and sanitation, and fewer and fewer restaurants and groceries are meeting even my somewhat mid-level standards.
Think I'll go clean my kitchen now . . . .

 

that thing with the woman and kids is disgusting., -You just can't be too careful nowadays.

 

This all makes me a bit angry, but also a little sad at the same time... As the old world in which I was born, no longer exists... Because back when I was a kid in the early 80s, no one would dare to do anything unhygienic in public. You could also trust whatever was being served in restaurants to be clean, (or even at roadside stalls). But today, I am doubtful of just about everything... Therefore I too follow certain precautions and rules whenever buying anything. Only at certain times, I really do miss the carefree past - Like going to the drive-in, and eat/drink whatever you liked. And yes, it really used to be very clean and tasty too. Whereas nowadays some items which are well packaged also make me vomit...

I really can't understand how is it possible to ruin just about everything on such a gigantic scale - From the attitude of people and their hygienic practices, to even the taste of ordinary drinking water too. Everything just seems to get uglier and uglier with the passage of time - Sigh...

 

Well, somehow this is the reverse of what the situation was like in Romania. And maybe in a whole bunch of other countries.
I grew up in communism. OK.
I remember everything was without packages. In bulk. There was no colorful, fancy wrapping for everything starting from cookies, candy, up to butter, bread, salami, cheese.
We used to drink water from the faucet.

Now I feel the world is going crazy. Everything wrapped, all must be approved for food industry, BUT most of the stuff they put in food is chemicals (anyway), WATER must come from a plastic container or use a filter or something, also there's so many commercials on TV for all sorts of vitamins, supplements (spelling?) and medicines for just about everything, and as we take too many of them, there's yet another medicine to make sure everything is alright in there.

COME ON!

 

Yes calinromania....in a lot of ways the old way was better. That's why I preserve as much as I can for my pantry. I have very little tin can foods and as always, the less processed the better for me.

I have a large Rubbermaid bin for my recycles. I mix them all together as I sort them at the recycle center. I take them out every 6 months. I think that isn't very much. My friends have big bags every week.

I always quietly think to myself that I have so much less "garbage" work to do and I eat better also than my friends. Of course I work harder on saving the food. They just go to the grocery store to get food. It's got nice wrappers and lots of vitamins and preservatives added.

Here is something funny. My sister asked me if she could bring something to help with the expenses. I thought and realized I didn't have to shop at all for Thanksgiving. How about that. Everything is already in my pantry and freezer. She can get the lettuce. LOL