Tag: pick n pay

Round up/explanation

Posted on

Sorry for the absence of posts over the weekend. Real life got in the way – it happens from time to time.
There was the visitor over from the UK, some big decisions to make about money, a hammock to mend and a car to wash – a few other little things as well.
It might not sound like a lot, but it soon adds up.

In between all that, a quick trip up Signal Hill to find the world’s largest pine cone and fish, chips and wonderfully cold beer on the Waterfront on what was (unofficially) almost the first weekend of summer.

All the big stuff went OK – but more about that another time.

Elsewhere:

  • Yes, I had the snip. It’s been a wholly unpleasant couple of weeks since then, although I’m feeling much better now.
    “Pain free in 3-5 days”? I think not.
    I am not ever going to go through that again. Obviously.
  • Manie, Pick and Pay’s “General Manager for the Western Cape” was apparently lying when he stated: “I would really like to get in touch with you” (about the utterly horrendous behaviour at their Constantia branch), because he’s been ignoring my emails ever since.
    The cynic in me wants to suggest that Manie was actually just commenting for the sake of good PR and damage control and I’m actually getting fed up of suppressing him (the cynic, not Manie).
  • My Henderson’s Relish biltong recipe is now perfected. It’s awesome and I’m almost tempted to ramp up to industrial-scale production.

More tomorrow.
Terms and Conditions apply.

Out of date

Posted on

Meh.

I was hoping to have some happy news this weekend, but the Public Sector Workers strike put paid to that. And when I say “put paid”, I mean “put paid, but not with an 8.6% increase and a R1000 housing allowance”. Just put paid a dismal and demeaning wage.
So more on that another time.

Instead, because I have many requests to elaborate on my shopping issues yesterday (as mentioned on twitter), I find myself bitching about the utterly despicable behaviour of local supermarket Constantia Pick n Pay which, as far as my recent experiences go, seems to consider it perfectly reasonable to sell goods which are past their sell by date.

Last week, I had to take some veg back to them because it was three weeks beyond its sell by date. Caveat emptor, you might say, but then why should the emptor have to caveat – shouldn’t the venditor be looking out for the emptor and taking the goods off the shelves once they’re past their best? Sure – I might have been a little more observant, but I was stressed, shopping amongst a million others (business is evidently good) in the narrow aisles of this flagship store.

That was annoying. My money. My petrol. My time.

And then yesterday. Wow. First of all, while looking for yoghurt, I noticed that one of the 6-packs on the shelf was 6 days beyond its sell by date. Not good. Fortunately, there was a PnP employee stacking the shelves right next to me, so I pointed this out to him and he removed the offending item. Easy.

But then, as I walked off down the chilled goods aisle, I forgot to get margarine. Can you imagine life without margarine? Dry toast. Dry…bread generally. And so on.

And when I realised and went back a few minutes later – guess what was back on the yoghurts shelf? That offending 6-pack again, sell by date still 30 Aug 10.
I was aghast. That’s disgraceful. Inexcusable. It was no mistake: he knew they were out of date. I tried to take a picture with my phone, but a security guy stopped me. Very pleasantly, I might add. Just doing his job.
Nice to see someone was, I thought.

The manager was “unavailable” when I asked. The staff seemed unconcerned about what had happened. I was unimpressed. Everywhere I looked, there were words beginning with “un”. That’s never a sign of a good situation.
I made a mental note to call the boss on Monday. And then I paid for the stuff I’d bought and went home. And yes, I tweeted about what had occurred, but I chose not to mention the store in question, despite a plethora of requests to “name and shame”.

And then I slid the cardboard sleeve off the ostrich fillet I had bought (this week, I’m trying ostrich biltong) and found that it too was past its best before date. I could not believe it. (I may have mentioned that.) I named and shamed.

So – back to Constantia Pick n Pay (My money. My petrol. My time), where I met Bertie, who told me that the manager was unavailable. So no change there then.

I explained to Bertie about last week’s veg, the yoghurt issue and my new-found ostrich fillet problem. Bertie half looked up from typing on his computer, apologised and said he “would look into it” with the same conviction which Zwelinzima Vavi might look into taking a 0.3% pay offer back to the Unions. But hey, at least I got to go and get some fresh ostrich fillet, although I had to pick it out from amongst those that were past that “BBD” again – those were still on the shelf when I left. Nice.

But I am determined to speak to Bertie on Monday and find out what he has discovered.
Because surely he wouldn’t have just said that to fob me off. Would he?

Pre-empting your questions:

1. I will go to another supermarket once they have finished building at Blue Route. Until then, it’s impossible to park.
2. I can’t afford the money, petrol or time to go to Table Bay Butchery. But thanks for the heads up.
3. I am aware that @picknpay are on twitter. But why would I want to go through a middleman when I have the name and number of the manager? What is the middleman going to do? Give me the name and number of the manager? Get him to call me? I can just about afford a local call, thank you.
Besides which, I have also had dealings with (and not necessarily complaints) MTN and Avis, whose social media presence is handled by the same agency and have received no assistance whatsoever by going that route.
Is it really worth these companies shelling out for this service? Not in my opinion – all you get are happy sycophants who get the occasional chance to win prizes. When it comes to the negative side of things, things seem somewhat less helpful.
There’s a whole other post in there – have you ever been helped via social media? And by “helped”, I mean got somewhere you couldn’t have done on your own? Let me know – I’d be interested.
My feeling is that (assuming you get any response) you simply get put through to the same people that couldn’t be bothered to help you in the first place.
4. The ostrich biltong should be ready tomorrow – I’ll let you know how good it is.

As for Constantia Pick n Pay – what can I say? I’m appalled.
I hope to speak to the manager tomorrow – maybe I’ll find out why I wasn’t able to on Saturday. And I’ll let you know what he says, because if he’s not bothered about what’s going on, then why should any other Pick n Pay manager be? Perhaps you might want to review your other options (such as they are) out there.

Sorry to rant.
6000 – protecting the rights (and the health) of the South African consumer – out.

Mixed messages from PnP et al

Posted on

A lot has already been said about the allegedly “proposed” Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) and the despicable Protection of Information Bill (PIB), not least in that post last week on here.
And so it continues with Gareth Ackerman, chairman of local retail giant Pick n Pay weighing in with his opinion:

Pick n Pay recognises there is a close link between economic and political freedom. The economic freedom on which business depends flourishes best when citizens are able to rely on an unfettered flow of information that is free from excessive government control and regulation.

And since so far, 99% of the criticism of these proposals has come solely from “the media”, creating an “us versus them” scenario, they leapt upon his words with gay abandon, obviously delighted to have an ally outside their close-knit ranks and quoting his ever so luscious soundbites one after another.
In the Times:

The business sector should not believe itself exempt from this duty of responsible citizenship, and we thus have no hesitation in adding our voices to those who have expressed their misgivings about the consequences of the governing party’s proposals.

And with cautious optimism in the Daily Maverick:

“Any erosion of our open society, now that we have achieved it, will only impede economic growth and national prosperity,” he said.
In airing these views… Ackerman may have opened the door for others of a similar persuasion to do the same, which may finally move the debate beyond an increasingly acrimonious to-and-fro between the ANC and political bodies on the one hand, and the media itself on the other… Ackerman has effectively called on the business community to stand up and be counted.

Of course, these words come from the same company that recently banned certain newspapers from its shelves, which had at least one columnist from er… The Daily Maverick up in arms:

After a couple of pesky complaints about “nudity” and bad language in the Afrikaans newspapers, Sondag and Die Son, Pick ’n Pay decided to no longer carry these papers on its shelves. This was despite the fact that the Sunday weekly is sold in supermarkets in sealed plastic bags.
Speaking to the Saturday Star, Ingo Capraro, Sondag’s editor, said the decision was disturbing: “The constitution enshrines freedom of choice, freedom of association and media freedom. Pick ’n Pay’s decision to decide on behalf of its customer what they are allowed to read flies directly in the face of freedom of choice.”

Pick ’n Pay appears to have taken the decision unilaterally, without any consultations with media or civic or watchdog organisations. The company acted as judge, jury and executioner… this would be a very bad time for Pick ’n Pay to start playing media censor.

Local tabloid the Daily Voice was also withdrawn from sale , although apparently it is now available “in selected Pick n Pay stores”.  So presumably T&A are not ubiquitously offensive. I’m not sure how one would go about deciding exactly which stores would have open-minded enough shoppers allow sale of such publications, but I’d be willing to be surveyed if it involved commenting on a series of pictures.

And yes, this is entirely different from “freedom of the press”, but then as Gareth has told us, all these freedoms – media, press, freedom of expression, political freedom, economic freedom, freedom of choice – are interlinked. Right?

But then, this isn’t the first time that PnP have made unilateral decisions and statements over the freedom of expression. Who could forget the whole 2009 “blasphemous” (or “unneccessarily offensive” as I thought), SAX Appeal magazine debacle, when PnP pulled the magazine off the shelves after receiving “several complaints”:

Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra Veley said that “students putting the magazine together should be extra careful while documenting, reporting and cartooning their work to avoid blatant disrespect of any faith, culture and race. We therefore made the decision to remove Sax Appeal from sale in Pick n Pay stores.”

But Freedom of Expression Institute executive director, Jane Duncan, said last night that blasphemy was no longer a recognised ground for restriction of publications: “So arguments to restrict the publication on this basis do not hold water”.

Look, I’m not stupid (no, really, I’m not). I recognise that Pick n Pay is a business and a business needs customers to keep going. And to keep the customers spending money, you must keep the customers happy. That’s obviously why they chose not to sell those newspapers and to withdraw the SAX Appeal magazine from sale. And yes, Ivo Vegter is correct in his assertion that one must:

…distinguish between the legal right to publish, and the right to sell what you want.

But I fail to see how the media can suddenly flip-flop and conveniently accept the support of Gareth Ackerman and Pick n Pay in their vigorous campaign against the MAT and PIB. It seems hugely hypocritical to me and has a more than faint smell of desperation about it: it seems that when you’re struggling, you’ll accept help from any quarter – even one that has blatantly stood against the same principles you’re fighting for on several occasions previously.

To me, that devalues your message, your campaign and with it, your chances of success.

Another Pick n Pay Sausage Fail

Posted on

Who could forget the infamous Pick n Pay experiment of sticking Pap and Wors in one handy sausage unit – the Worst Wors™ ever?

Well, not content with turning your stomach with that, it would now appear that they are putting Oyster Sauce and Rice Wine in their Boeries and have moved away from recommending braai’ing as the cooking method of choice:

“Opstal” translates as “Homestead”. But out on the small-holding, I’m pretty sure Ouma van der Merwe would never have thought of using those sorts of ingredients before stirfrying her traditional sausage.

The BBC Lifestyle channel has a lot to answer for.

Try Me I’m New

Posted on

Because my most important reader is me.
And also because some people aren’t on twitter (my end of which has gone a bit crazy since I posted this earlier today).

This photo:

DSC00164

Which stomach-churningly combines two of the staples of South African cookery into one handy-to-braai sausage casing.
At what point did someone actually stop whatever they were doing and consider putting pap and wors into a single sausage unit? And then go and do it? And then, having examined the visually-disturbing result, decide that putting it on sale would be a good thing to do?
Have Pick n Pay lost the plot? What are they smoking in that butchery there?

Try me I’m new, it entices.

No thanks. Really. No.