Showing posts with label grocery stores. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery stores. Show all posts

The Sickening Problems With Fiesta Mart in Texas

Graphic by Tom Eats Houston
We've all run across items in a supermarket that are past their expiration date. It doesn't happen very often, and when it does (in my experience) the product is only a day or two past the date recommended by the manufacturer. Many grocery stores will mark items down when they get near their "sell by" date to move them out quickly. 

However, our friends at Tom Eats Houston found a supermarket that chronically keeps long-out-of-date food items on the shelves. Not just a day or two, but weeks out of date. That's beyond gross, it's potentially dangerous for the consumers who aren't careful about checking those dates. It could, possibly, lead to food poisoning or even death. 

The supermarket in question here is a store belonging to the chain Fiesta Mart, based in Houston. They have over 60 stores in Texas.  

The chain, reports Center Daily Times, "has been cited 13 times since 2015, according to an Aug. 15 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration." 

“Despite painful and permanent injuries suffered by a half dozen of its employees since 2015, Fiesta Mart repeatedly ignores required safety standards,” OSHA Regional Administrator Eric S. Harbin said in the release. “The company now faces penalties of more than $1 million for their disregard of the law. Fiesta Mart must change the way it operates before more workers suffer serious injury.”

Given that apparent disregard for the safety of their own employees, it should not be surprising that Fiesta Mart shows no concern about their customers' safety by continuing to sell long-expired food items. 

In a blog post titled "Expired Food Too Common at Fiesta #39 in Houston," Tom Eats Houston (TEH) details a couple of times that food was left for sale on the shelves long past the time it should have been removed. Excerpts: 

Today [Jan. 11, 2023] I was in Fiesta Mart in Houston's Sharpstown neighborhood and found six cartons of liquid egg whites that expired weeks ago. 

This is their Store #39, at 8710 Bellaire, Houston, Texas. This store, in my opinion, is the worst supermarket in Houston and one of the worst I've seen anywhere in the United States. 

Five of the liquid egg cartons I found at Fiesta were marked "Use by 26 Dec 22," and one was marked "Use by 28 Nov 22" (six weeks and 2 days past safe usage). As with the expired sausages I found in August 2022 (see below), I took the expired cartons up front and left them with a clerk and when I asked for a manager I was told they were all in a meeting. I asked her to tell the managers that they're doing a lousy job of keeping expired food items off the shelves.

Over the past four years, I've come across numerous products at this Fiesta that are long past their "sell by" and "use by" dates. Do they want to be sued for food poisoning?

In the same post, TEH detailed a previous bad experience at the same Fiesta Mart in August 2022:

I found seven packages of sausages on August 30. Each had a "sell by" date of July 31. A month out of date. How did the staff miss this?

I've often found perishable items that are way past "sell by" dates at this store. Dairy, packaged meats, and other items. Do they not care? Are they lazy? Stupid? Do they put profit ahead of customer safety? I don't know. 

A couple of years ago, I found a packaged seafood item on a non-refrigerated display. The package clearly said, "Keep Refrigerated," and not just after opening. It was perishable. I pointed this out to a manager. His response shocked me. "Well, we don't refrigerate those in my country." Yes, well, ahem, we're not there.

You've been warned. Check those "sell by" dates, especially at Fiesta Mart #39 in Houston. It might keep you from getting sick – or maybe even from dying. 

If you're in Houston, you might rethink shopping at Fiesta Mart. Or, at the very least, carefully check expiration dates on the items you choose. That's good advice no matter where you buy your food.

LOL: Stuck With $10,000 Worth of Toilet Paper, Hand Sanitizer

Empty shelves at a Houston TX H.E.B. grocery
Empty shelves in Houston, Texas 3/13/2020 (CNB)
A man in Adelaide, Australia hoarded a massive amount of toilet paper and hand sanitizer in the hope of reselling it for profit.

With the help of his "team" of 20 fellow hoarders, the selfish man stocked up on 132 packs of toilet paper and 150 one-liter bottles of hand sanitizer.

According to John-Paul Drake, director of Drakes Supermarkets, the man phoned the supermarket to ask about returning the items.

He told Mr. Drake that they purchased the goods about a month ago, as the coronavirus-related panic buying was surging. 

"In that conversation [the shopper said] 'my eBay site has been shut down, so we couldn't profiteer off that'," Mr Drake told ABC Radio Adelaide.
Mr Drake described that kind of stockpiling as "absolutely disgraceful", and said it was the reason that supermarkets had had to "band together" to introduce purchasing limits on products like toilet paper and hand sanitiser during the coronavirus crisis.

Video below: Sky News Australia has a good interview with John-Paul Drake.

Fresh Harvest Market Uptown Opens Friday

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger would be happy to know that the intersection of North Sheridan & W. Leland in Uptown, Chicago will no longer be a "food dessert" after 7:00 a.m., Friday, March 6. (Click photos to enlarge) Stroger meant "desert," of course, as in arid region, not as in chocolate cake. Todd Stroger could have his desert and eat it too if he gets hip to Uptown's newest grocery destination. And I do mean destination. I took a train to Uptown to check the place out; lots of buzz in the hood about it already and as I paused to take pictures a number of locals peered through the big front windows. I think they were salivating. Fresh Harvest Market, 4650 N. Sheridan Road, is a beautiful new food store that looks very upscale. The owner is Roesheeda Oghefue, and the parent company is My Ranch, Inc. "Fresh Harvest Market" is the DBA. My Ranch was incorporated in Illinois in March 1998. The new store in Uptown received its retail food establishment business license on January 28, 2009. That being said, it's a bit jarring at first to run into this jewel (no pun intended) of a grocery store in this part of Uptown. It is in a very economically mixed neighborhood. A very modern, new condo building sits on the same intersection, while a block south of it is one of the roughest micro-war zones in Chicago (at Wilson and Sheridan). Nevertheless, it's a good thing to have a nice grocery store nearby for folks who live the area, and Fresh Harvest Market looks to be exceptional. Fresh Harvest Market - 4650 N. Sheridan Road (at W. Leland) (773) 516-4860 (no parking lot) Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Cool Stuff...

Dominick's Returning to West Ridge

No more "food desert" at Pratt and Ridge on Chicago's north side. (Or, as Todd Stroger would say, "food dessert.") Despite massive UN food relief efforts, starvation has killed an estimated 12,090 West Ridge residents within a two block radius of the Pratt and Ridge intersection since the Dominick's closed its doors in March 2007. Full story at News-Star...