Friday 4 June 2010

Why I hate Safeway, part II

Long time readers of this blog may remember a post from two years ago called Why I hate Safeway. Of the many reasons, one was:

I can't buy 2 bloody pounds of ground beef!! Here are my choices for ground beef: 560 grams or 1.14 kg. What the fuck?? Every recipe on the planet calls for an even pound of ground beef. ONE pound. Not 1 1/3. Not 2 1/2. Of course the beef is also packed in a giant shrink-wrapped styrofoam container to maximize the environmental destruction coefficient of the product.
Even the recipe on their own packaging calls for one pound of meat, fer Christ's sake:


Well, I was desperate for ground beef the other day and didn't have time to go anywhere else, so I ended up in the Dangerway meat department. The meat guy (I won't call him a butcher because I think the meat is actually butchered in a factory in Ontario) was out stocking the ground beef, so I had to ask him: "Why don't you package the meat in one pound increments?"

His answer: when they moved to larger containers, one pound of ground beef looked too small, so they made a decision to add more beef so the containers would look fuller.

Really? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard (while shopping at Safeway.) Why not just buy smaller containers? I can just imagine the conversation in the Safeway board room:

Director of meat: Uh, hey ... we have a little problem with our ground beef packaging ...

VP of marketing: What do you mean?

Director of meat: You know that retarded kid that we hired to fill our "special needs" quota? Ya, well ... I thought it might be kinda fun to put him in charge of reordering our meat trays, and, uh ...

VP of marketing: You did what???

Director of meat: Well, I just though he would bang on some keys and have fun, but somehow he ended up locking us into a 30 year contract with the Giant Styrofoam Tray Company. Our 1 lb meat trays are big enough to hold 5 lbs of meat. What do we do?

VP of marketing: Jesus Christ, Ben. This is a bigger screw-up than the time you ordered grain-fed chicken from Canada instead of factory chicken from Mexico. I guess we only have one choice: put more meat in the package so it looks fuller.

Director of meat: But won't people eat more than they need and get fatter?

VP of marketing: Well yeah, but the fatter they are the more they'll eat, right? Plus we'll also sell more. It's a win-win! Boy am I smart ...

*****

I've been a little busy lately, by the way. I had the above post mostly done already and just threw it out there to let you know I'm still alive. Will be back next week. In the mean time, BBQ yourself some extra large burgers and enjoy the weekend.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fucking consumers, can't please em.

Anonymous said...

Not to worry, there's at least 1/3 lb of fat that can be drained off.

Shaun M Wheeler said...

Damn, now I'm hungry for burgers again.

Some advice on dealing with recipes that would leave you with a ground beef surplus: adjust the quantities of the other ingredients accordingly to even things out. Requires a bit of practice but it can be done. ;)

cherenkov said...

Good advice, Shaun. Difficult to do with Hamburger Helper, however.

Mmmmm. Hamburger Helper ....

Anonymous said...

Wow. If it only takes a tiny bit of extra hamburger to piss you off this much, your road rage must be spectacular!!

DriveGoddess said...

dude....you crack me up man. I am so spoiled living down the street from a proper butcher shop. Mmmm, Hamburger Helper - Betty Crockalicious with loads of sodium!!

cherenkov said...

Anon: if intentionally causing two accidents is spectacular, then yes. The buggers deserved it though.

DG: That's why you can only have it once in a while as a treat.

Anonymous said...

"Director of meat: You know that retarded kid that we hired to fill our "special needs" quota? Ya, well ... I thought it might be kinda fun to put him in charge of reordering our meat trays, and, uh ..."

your above quote is disgusting and you should be a shamed of yourself! i work for safeway and i HATE safeway but how dare you make fun of the special needs people that work beside us! i hope you burn in hell! add calling them "retarted" WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? i wish i knew what store you shopped at cuz i would make it my personal mission to make your life a living hell!

cherenkov said...

Woah, dude. You need to dial back the intensity level a wee bit. That's just not healthy.

 
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