New Stop and Shop organization.
Nov. 21st, 2005 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstfrostFor shopping that's small enough to carry, I'll usually stop by the Porter Square Star on the way home. For car-worthy shopping (i.e. Thanksgiving), I've started to go to the Super Stop and Shop off the McGrath. On the plus side, it always has parking, and it's always been un-crowded enough that one doesn't have to play passing games with the other carts.
On the minus side, their store organization seems to be infested with feuds, which makes things hard to find - because they're subdivided into multiple places for no apparent reason. For example, I needed two cups of pecans. I went to the baking aisle (having been trained by Star). Sure enough, there were nuts there. Mostly walnuts, but there were the little teeny 1/4 cup bags of pecans. Not really ideal. And also the extra-expensive bag of Organic Pecans. Well, okay. I pick it up. I wander further, and there is an end-cap on that aisle, with carboard tubs of pecans. But they don't have prices, so I can't tell whether they're better or worse. Later, in the vegetable section, there are nuts stashed around here and there in shelves under the vegetables, in clear plastic tubs. No pecans, though. Oh well. Yet later, I encounter the aisle with snacks and nuts. There are salted nuts here, but also a duplicate of the baking-nuts section, except instead of 1/4 cup pecan bags, there are 2-cup pecan bags.
I had the same trouble looking for golden raisins and dried cranberries. There are little stashes of raisin snacks and cherry-flavored craisins and chocolate covered craisins all over the vegetable section like buried treasure. And tubs of dried mangos, and dried apricots, and enough dried fruit that it seems like this is maybe where I should be looking. Though "carefully comb the shelves under the produce section" is never my favorite way of finding anything; there's nothing like the sorting there is for the actual fruits and vegetables, they've just stashed things wherever they fit. But in the end, the golden raisins are not near the raisins or the chocolate-covered raisins or the yogurt-covered raisins, they're in the previously mentioned nuts and snacks section, which is where the non-cherry-flavored dried cranberries are, as well.
I understand that sorting is hard. I can sympathize with their not knowing where to put something. But for the love of God, if you don't know where to put something, don't file it in all the places you can think of! I want to be able to definitely say "I found the place that it would be and it was there, or they don't have it." I don't want to feel compelled to search the entire store in case the pecans are filed with baking supplies and snacks and produce and things that start with P.
And I never did find the crystallized ginger. If they carry it. How would I be able to tell?
On the minus side, their store organization seems to be infested with feuds, which makes things hard to find - because they're subdivided into multiple places for no apparent reason. For example, I needed two cups of pecans. I went to the baking aisle (having been trained by Star). Sure enough, there were nuts there. Mostly walnuts, but there were the little teeny 1/4 cup bags of pecans. Not really ideal. And also the extra-expensive bag of Organic Pecans. Well, okay. I pick it up. I wander further, and there is an end-cap on that aisle, with carboard tubs of pecans. But they don't have prices, so I can't tell whether they're better or worse. Later, in the vegetable section, there are nuts stashed around here and there in shelves under the vegetables, in clear plastic tubs. No pecans, though. Oh well. Yet later, I encounter the aisle with snacks and nuts. There are salted nuts here, but also a duplicate of the baking-nuts section, except instead of 1/4 cup pecan bags, there are 2-cup pecan bags.
I had the same trouble looking for golden raisins and dried cranberries. There are little stashes of raisin snacks and cherry-flavored craisins and chocolate covered craisins all over the vegetable section like buried treasure. And tubs of dried mangos, and dried apricots, and enough dried fruit that it seems like this is maybe where I should be looking. Though "carefully comb the shelves under the produce section" is never my favorite way of finding anything; there's nothing like the sorting there is for the actual fruits and vegetables, they've just stashed things wherever they fit. But in the end, the golden raisins are not near the raisins or the chocolate-covered raisins or the yogurt-covered raisins, they're in the previously mentioned nuts and snacks section, which is where the non-cherry-flavored dried cranberries are, as well.
I understand that sorting is hard. I can sympathize with their not knowing where to put something. But for the love of God, if you don't know where to put something, don't file it in all the places you can think of! I want to be able to definitely say "I found the place that it would be and it was there, or they don't have it." I don't want to feel compelled to search the entire store in case the pecans are filed with baking supplies and snacks and produce and things that start with P.
And I never did find the crystallized ginger. If they carry it. How would I be able to tell?
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-22 05:17 pm (UTC)Well, yes, I didn't remark on finding the hams in the Place Where All The Hams Are. :) (But the sausages are in two places!)
I wholly support putting the snacky nuts in a different section than the bakey nuts. The pecans were really the most gratuitous example, though, because snacky nuts and cooking nuts are packaged entirely differently, and were in different subsections. Snacking almonds are usually salted, sometimes smoke-flavored, and packaged in tubs and jars. Cooking almonds are sometimes sliced, sometimes blanched, always unsalted, and packaged in bags like chocolate chip bags. So snacks are in visble-front shelves, and cooking nuts are in shorter shelves with piles of bags, or hanging.
It's that they had two different "cooking nuts" sections, the contents 80% overlapping but with the pecans sorted between sections based on the size of the bag. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 04:34 pm (UTC)See, I don't support having a snacky nut section and a bakey nut section. I want to find some almonds and say, "Aha, I have located almonds. Wait, these are soot-flavored. I don't want that. Ah, here are some more. No, these have skins on them, and there's the danger of getting an unsightly brown papery thing in your teeth and spending all day wandering around with it stuck to your dentition and no one can bring themselves to mention it. Aha!! Slivered almonds. Perfect."
If they want to keep both you and me satisfied, they're going to have to duplicate all the almonds in both the baking zone and the snacking zone. Then someone comes along and buys all the 2 cup bags of pecans in the baking zone, and poor
no subject
Date: 2005-11-23 04:45 pm (UTC)I would also be fine with having all the nuts in one place. It is only that I do not want to have the same *sort* of nuts divided mysteriously between two places by size, because I will *never* think "Hmm, I want a larger bag. Well, maybe those are in a different section."