Black spots on the apples (my son won't eat them ) and mushrooms that grew mould in 2 days.
Apart from that I am also a bit of a nationalist. I really don't see why, when we are hassled by the Germans at the border and why gifts sent to Germany from Swiss addresses are always subject to more hassle by German customs that they are, say, for packages from the US, I should spend my money supporting a German company more than I need to.
I will probably get a rollocking for this post, but it's Swiss supermarkets for me every time. Same reason we are absolutely faithful Swisscom customers. I'd rather pay a bit more and support Swiss companies.
The only time I use Swisscom for a calls was to have my pre-section set up with someone else or when they force you to use them when calling a business 0800 number. Now my line rental is gone too. Still, they want to keep my CHF 200 deposit
Going off-topic: BTW I was thinking the other day it's funny how the germans have stopped complaining about the noise (of airplanes passing over Germany) since Lufthansa took over Swiss.
Migros use a max. of about 10% water. Some products have no added water at all.
Another problem is that many chicken producers even add salt and other chemicals to the water they inject, in order to enhance the otherwise bland taste of the mass produced chicken.
I buy my chicken from a local chicken farm and it works out to about 1 Fr per kg more than the Migros but about the same as the Coop. Now THAT's chicken - Swiss born and bred and absolutely delicious.
See what I mean ?
0800 numbers are free - no money is charged when you call a Swiss 0800 number. (0900 and 0848 are the business numbers).
Swisscom is usually very customer-friendly and efficient (from my experience anyway) and usually pay the deposit back after making sure that there are no outstanding bills under that contract or subscription. What you could also do is to pop in to your nearest Swisscom shop, take an ID and any receipts, documentation etc. that you have and talk to someone there. If its anything like Lyss, they will be very helpful.
Seeing on one an apple doesn't bother me as I buy apples from farms all the time, but on meat? No thanks.
People never seem to wonder why these things are cheaper. They're cutting costs somewhere, be it quality, treatment of workers, place of origin, or a combination of all the above. Sure, the meat may be labeled "Swiss" but Swiss pigs and cows have the same amount of rectums and gristle as those from any other country. Maybe I'm just a particularly good shopper, which I doubt, but we can get the same amount of far better groceries from Migros or Coop. It takes a little more effort in terms of looking for deals, but I love to shop for food the most part so it doesn't bother me much. I guess the Wal-martization of Europe is inevitable.
Also, a Lidl store was just caught pouring poisonous household chemicals on food in the dumpsters to keep those pesky homeless people away. I won't support companies like that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-homeless.html
Aldi apparently pays its employees less than coop and migros, both in wages and pensions, and uses more part time work in order to avoid paying full time benefits.
I gave it a shot because I wanted to see for myself, but in a strange way I'm glad that I found the quality pretty lousy, because I'm not even tempted to try it again. If it were more like a Trader Joes for example, I would have great difficulty resisting the urge to shop there despite lousy business practices.
Now that is a GREAT chain store. Great for throwing parties. I sometimes imagine I'm the only one in CH who know of them. Now why can't we have Trader Joe's here? Show them how it should be done.
(suddenly homesick)
Stores in the UK often destroy food close to the use by date rather than sell it off cheap or donating it to charities. This helps to keep their prices up. Some of them didn't like people waiting for prices to be reduced rather than paying full price.
As with many media articles, they have to include a bit of sensationalism or over dramatism. I do not believe that customers were 'forced' to purchase alcohol. It may have been a condition of the competition, and that may be considered wrong.
Certainly, what Lidl did was wrong.
I hope that their intention was not to deliberately poison people, and doubt that it was their intention. If I really thought this had been their intention, I would be the first to boycott their stores. I believe that it was more likely to have been a seriously misguided action to deter the rummaging through bins. Even without the addition of chemicals to the bins the health risks must have been pretty high.