Are you an online grocery shopper? If you are then you’ll probably be familiar with substitutions. So have you suffered from any strange shopping swaps?
I used to be a regular online supermarket shopper, and it turns out it’s becoming popular for weekly shops. Our recent survey found that some 45% of shoppers now do their grocery shop online.
I opted for an online shop after finding carting all my shopping back to my flat a real pain. However, I soon realised that online shopping could be equally painful… as I always had a few substitutions.
The final straw came when in one order I had an entire box of eggs smashed, leaking milk and a spice called asafoetida, which the supermarket naturally assumed was an appropriate substitution for cinnamon.
Supermarket substitutions
To this day I haven’t used my asafoetida, and I’m not all that sure it would beat cinnamon on top of my porridge. I suppose swapping one spice for another isn’t all that strange when you compare it to some of the stories we’ve been hearing from you.
Last year we reported on the odd substitutions you’d had, with Steve telling us about his rather useless delivery:
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And it would seem that supermarket substitutions are getting stranger based on the latest set of swaps Which? members have shared with us.
Latest supermarket substitutions
We heard from one member who had received nappies instead of a pack of four sausage rolls – of course.
Another member was delivered toilet roll when they’d ordered Bolognese sauce. And astonishingly someone else had a box of Tampax delivered instead of lettuce. Seems perfectly logical, don’t you think?
Now, what would you do if you were planning on a nice Sunday roast chicken and the supermarket proudly delivered you a packet of chicken crisps? Yes, this was also on our list of odd substitutions. Last time I consulted my Jamie Oliver Sunday Roast recipe it definitely didn’t incorporate any chicken crisps, although a Heston Blumenthal recipe might.
Curiouser and curiouser
Understandably substitutions can’t always be avoided. But I’m not too sure I can identify a logical thought process for some of the above.
Before I completely moved on from online grocery shopping, I did find a hidden section on the ordering page which allowed me to specifically nominate my substitution preferences. But the process was so laborious that it was more effort than it was worth. So I’ll stick to a weekly visit to my local supermarket.
Now I’m curious, have you had any strange supermarket substitution in your online shop?
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