Supermarket Finds: Pre-ripened fruit

Pre ripened avocados at Sobeys

Or as we say in English, “Ripe avocados.”

Increasingly, supermarkets are ripening my fruit for me. Tomatoes are vine-ripened, peaches and nectarines are tree-ripened, and now avocados at Sobeys are, uh, pre-ripened, as if they’re doing me some kind of favour. It’s funny how only avocados get this odd notation. Mind you, I’m sure that the “pre-ripened” sign will result in more sales than the equivalent “50% reduced for quick sale” over at Loblaws. The wonders of marketing: convincing you that they’re doing something revolutionary while selling you the same thing you’ve always been buying. Of course, the downside to this wonderful new pre-ripening service is that I now have to go to separate bins to buy avocados for today and Sunday.

Meanwhile, I’m still ripening all of my pears and bananas on my own. I feel that Sobeys just isn’t doing enough to meet my pre-ripened fruit needs.

Use your nodle

Chicken nodle soup

Call me what you will, but I don’t think that expecting properly spelled food labels in the local Sobeys is asking for too much.  Everybody makes mistakes (guilty!), but is it really possible that no employees or managers noticed this label all day long yesterday? Or is it more likely that the staff noticed but just didn’t care enough to fix it? Either way, it doesn’t exactly give me confidence that Sobeys treats my food with any greater care than, say, the local Loblaws.