No Poker Face

It's a good job that I am not a gambler, as if I were I would surely lose at poker. I am not very good at hiding my emotions especially when faced with a confrontation.

This was illustrated yesterday when I went to visit the local greengrocers. I had gone there to to buy some eggs for a dish I wished to make. In previous postings I have spoken about the poor quality of the produce there however as it was only a few items that I needed I decided to make my purchases there.

Recently the greengrocer's in the village had moved in to a new and larger shop unit and I was hoping that they would be improvement in the quality following this move. On the Wednesday when it reopened I had made some purchases and the quality seemed to be quite good. All the produce was fresh. So I was not expecting any problems when I went in on Saturday.

I have been quite busy during the day, so I was pressed for time, and just wanted to quickly make the purchase of the eggs. When it looked for the eggs all I could find were the eggs from the cage birds. Therefore I asked if they had any free range. I was directed to another collection of egg boxes and was told that they were free range. However, I looked at the codes that are printed on the eggs, I thought that the owner had made a mistake as the codes clearly showed they were from cage hens. Now had he just acknowledged a mistake then there would have been no problem, however he tried to con me into believing that these were as special code for locally-produced eggs. Having kept chickens myself and knowing the regulation for marking eggs, I realise that this was not just a mistake but that he was deliberately trying to sell eggs from caged birds as free-range.

Even so I did try and point out that the codes on the eggs indicated that they were form cage production, at this point the shop owner lost his temper and started ranting and raving so I just walked out. As a say, I know I have not got a poker face, and my emotions were written all over my face, and I had given him a withering look however I did not expect him to leave the shop and following me started ranting and raving at the top of his voice in the street.

On previous occasions when I have visited the shop and pass comment on the poor quality of some other produce, the owner has tried to obfuscate the issue by telling me how regularly he is inspected. It was not until think in about these events, that I realised that I have not been the only one that has received poor quality and poor service from this local shop.

While I do genuinely want to support the local businesses in the village, when it comes to food you have to be a trust the supplier that your buying the food from. That trust has totally broken down and I will not be using the shop ever again.

Perhaps I should explain for my overseas reader, that here in the UK and in Europe the Eggs themselves are printed with codes that designate the type of production they come from.

Organic 0
Free Range 1
Barn 2
Caged 3

Apart from the welfare issues of the different forms of production, the main factor here is one of price. caged eggs are the cheapest and the difference between organic and Cage production can be as much as three times the price. That incentive is why he has been selling caged eggs as free range. Further this has not been the first time that this has happened to me, and it looks as though this has happened to other people in the past. the number of inspections have taken place in the shop shows that other people have been complaining about the quality of his produce and his labelling.

As I've said before in previous posts, I regularly go into Consett for my shopping and frequently I'm told of the poor quality of the produce in the local greengrocers. Personally have think this is a real shame that a village this size is so poorly served by a charlatan who only cares about the profits he can make from the village. If he didn't treat his customers with such contempt he could have a really good business as there is a ready market for the service he provides.

Well sooner or later he will get close down as the locals will stop using the shop and complain to the health and Hygiene authorities over this form of mis-selling

To me it is clear that others have already complained, or why would he ever over-reacted in the manner that he did, I suspect he thinks that I have been the person has complained about the shop in the past, well not in the past by will be contacting the local council on Monday to make a complaint.