She needs to watch French movies where they always have a baguette sticking out of their grocery bag.
I was camping in France. It really is like that every morning. Some of them even bite into it as soon as they leave the bakery.
There even are baguette dispensers on the street. You put 1€ in it, a tasty baguette comes out.
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If it's in that kind of bag (with little holes in it), it was definitely freshly baked that day. That kind of bag is designed to keep the bread crispy, but it can only be used on the day it was baked, or the bread will become hard as rock the next day. If a loaf is going to be kept and sold the next day, it has to be rebagged into a solid plastc bag to keep it fresh. "Lovely" is subjective. It's a grocery store baguette.
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In a regular bakery, the bread is behind the counter, out of reach of the patrons, correct? In a grocery store, it's all on the shelf, where anyone can touch it. This is much more sanitary. I wouldn't buy any that weren't wrapped up.
No, most grocery stores in Europe have bread in a specific bread container that had a lid on it. You open the lid, take out a baguette and close the lid falls down again. They compartments inside the container get regularly refilled from the back where they are baked. I've seen this setup even in cheapo-chains like Aldi and Lidl.
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That's great, but what do you put the bread into? A plastic bag, or do people just carry them around bare? What happens if someone drops it and decides they want another, or just changes their mind about buying one? In North America, they'll probably just put it back in the bin. Now the next person gets floor bread or, at least, something that someone else has been carrying around until they changed their mind.
All bigger chains I have visited seem to have paper like bags for bread stuff. Plastic bags also exist, but those are usually in other grocery sections.
In theory you could pack it in your own container if you wish, do not think anyone would have issues with that, but I have never seen anyone doing that.
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Paper bags have to be left open to let the moisture vent and allow the bread to crisp. That doesn't work on the grocery store floor. We tried it. Our first bags were paper.
??? The rest of the world uses paper bags for almost everything, you can't convince me that in usa you have to use non decomposable dead dinosaur bags because you have to throw the bread on floors??
Can confirm. At least now they're asking for some things, instead of doing it automatically.
Ok, in all fairness it may very well be freashly baked, but from a factory. This bagette is made industrially. It's very clear from it's appearance (even ignoring the plastic bag). This bagette does not taste good and in only few hours time it will be dry as hell.
As a proud snail slurper, I don't trust no bagette coming in a plastic bag!
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Bread doesn't last long enough in this kind of bag for it to have been baked in a factory and shipped to the store. It's baked fresh in the store that day. It'a baked from a "bread base" (think cake mix, but for bread), to which yeast and water are added. It's mixed, proofed, then baked, all on-site in the bakery. Source: me! I worked in a grocery store bakery.
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Ah, nineties Spar. The pick-and-mix was right under her ashtray. I can still taste the strawberry laces with a hint of Pall Mall.
I'm sorry the title joke was stolen from beard_necessities_of_life on insta. Hbomberguy video has me scared of plagiarism
Ha. I don't think I even read the title. I didn't even see the pun until I read your comment. So I'm glad you cited your source.
Pretty sure the baguette still works.
Personally, I tend to eat half by the time I get to the car, so I would consider this good customer service.
I'm french and I've never heard about breaking a baguette being "bad". Sure, the broken tips are gonna go dry a little faster but it's not a big deal
That's weird as well, but what I meant is in Europe you pack your groceries yourself
This OP picture is from somewhere in Europe. "Till" is the English word, while Americans would say something like cash register or check out counter. And SPAR is a European chain of grocery stores
But in the U.S our food is not fresh enough to be bagged by the customer. It must be wrapped so it can sit out for a considerable duration.
interesting, didn't know that despite having lived in the UK and Ireland for a while
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The Asian model, create endless useless jobs to make sure everyone can have something to do even if it's just standing in front of a parking entrance to point people in.
Colruyt insists on their weird "cashier tranfers the items into another cart while scanning and bags them for you while they're at it" strategy. And they do own the Spar brand in Belgium.
Although as franchisees some of the Spar stores keep the regular tills. Unfortunately mine does the weird cart transfer thing, which is much slower, though apparently it deters theft..?
At my local Price Chopper they have occasional baggers. It’s definitely not an expensive store.
I'm from the "European country" known as UK and every single major store sells plastic wrapped baguettes. You only see them in paper in the smaller shops
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It's a plastic bag with tiny holes in it. These are on the store floor, where people can grab a baguette for themselves. The plastic keeps the braguette relatively safe, and the holes allow moisture to escape, keeping the baguette crispy for the day
Oddly enough, most American supermarkets put every baguette they bake that day (if they bake it that day) in plastic bags. Although in this case, I believe they mean that they broke the baguette in the plastic bag in half so it would fit in the bag with the rest of the groceries.
The meme is also European, from Ireland. That said, I'm more interested which Spar is selling long enough baguettes that they don't fit in a bag. My local shops don't.
Thanks; I'll try it. I usually get bread and sparkling water there (their produce and meat quality got so bad I switched to Aldi), but I haven't been looking for baguettes yet.
Americans still feeling superior because their country has solved this problem by selling sliced bread.
Congrats on getting half the joke.
The other half is that Europeans would not equate a loaf to a baguette.
Never understood (or experienced) having my purchases bagged for me when I do groceries
From the grocery store's perspective, at least in the US, it keeps the checkout lines moving way faster when some kid who is trained to bag groceries does it, rather than waiting for the customer to figure out how to pack it.
All grocery stores where I live have this device consisting of swivelling plank separating the packing area into two. If someone is slow at bagging the clerk will simply move the plank and all groceries go into the second half where the second person can bag them. It gives the first person time to bag and the next customer again has their groceries place in the first half.
We have these in my area as well, though these stores are mostly considered vendors for poor folk.
Funny enough, the upscale stores have tons of self-checkouts and fewer cashiers. It's as if bagging one's own groceries with a cashier is for unfortunates, but doing both jobs yourself is in fashion.
You say this, but it never seems to be an issue here. Its a cultural thing i guess but people seem to manage without
Since most US people go to the market by car why do they need to pack? When I shop by car I just throw everything in the cart and then everything in the trunk, I only pack meat and some other moisty stuff
We have a cultural practice here in the states where we display dominance to our neighbors by carrying all of our groceries in one trip.
I’d look like a total bitch juggling and dropping everything from the car to the front door.
As it is right now, I deadlift my groceries and walk about 20 feet looking totally rad and dominant. I do this while loudly reminding my woman to “git” (which means something totally different from the git you’re used to) so the neighbors know that I’m a man’s man who doesn’t need any help from a female. That also shows her that I respect her weakness and don’t want her to get injured, which gets me laid later in the day. She rolls her eyes, but she knows how it is. This is why I have a pile of children by the way. All weak female children, but one day I will have a son and I will train him in the ways of his ancestors.
Everyone always listens for their neighbor’s car too so they can step outside to giggle while they struggle and drop their groceries. Of course we also gotta help the ladies whose men have abandoned them to deadlift groceries by themselves.
But seriously, why not put a bag or box in your car, put the groceries from the shopping cart in there and then carry that bag from the car to your home?
See now you’re foolin’ worn tradition bud. I mean, maybe I can get my kids doing it. :p
Not a bad idea though.
And yet somehow this isn't a problem at all in countries where we don't have people bagging our groceries. Checkouts very rarely have any downtime where we need to wait on people to finish bagging. Even with old people.
Big difference between being walking distance from groceries and needing to drive there. Bagging a few days worth of groceries is a lot faster than 2 weeks worth
A lot of people here go shopping by car for a whole week as well and we also have people living in areas where the next shopping isn't in walking distance. And it still works just fine. It's really easy because of course you don't have to stand in front of the checkout the whole time but can already bag stuff while the rest is being scanned. As long as you can bag your groceries as fast as they are being scanned it's really no big problem. And if you're a 90 year old granny who isn't as fast, they still can bag their groceries while the next costumer is being processed since the packaging area is usually divided into two sections.
I'm really sorry, but the US didn't invent some special kind of super grocery shopping which no other country can understand. You just like the convenience of not bagging your stuff yourself. It's really not some top secret technique to make shopping 150% more efficient or something.
You're not the first one to say so, but a job that exist just to create jobs sounds like a bad excuse. Why would a store just create jobs?
To create cheap (overworked) labor to make a customer's shopping experience better, in hopes of them coming back to spend more money.
As someone who works in a grocery store (but not on the front end), I like how you're assuming baggers only bag. I guess it depends on the company, but those poor bastards tend to have to bag, clear carts from the lot, sweep the store, clean the restrooms, clean spills around the store, among other tasks. All while receiving the lowest wage in the store.
I'm not assuming that actually. None of those jobs are particularly hard. Check out baggers are not overworked.
When you have a family of three and you're shopping for them by yourself and have to put them on the conveyor belt without help, it's a big time saver.
The people i see who have loaded carts, usually just pop everything back into the cart and repack either when they offload into the car or before they exit the store
That sounds like a great way to piss off other shoppers considering the lack of space for everyone to take the time for either of those activities in many supermarkets.
I guess we must accept that things work differently in different parts of the world. It works fine here and no one gets either pissed off or is in the way.
How much space is there inside the store for people to do that past the registers? Because here, there's room for about two carts and no table to do it on. Then in the parking lot, if the weather isn't terrible (it can get down to arctic temperatures and blizzarding here in the winter), you have to hope you leave enough room, if there is enough room to leave, for other cars to get by you.
The only place I have ever been to in the U.S. where bagging your own groceries was feasible was Aldi.
It's simply a different system. The markets are adjusted to it. There is enough room and sometimes even tables for this purpose. The markets are simply using different mechanisms to speed up the process so that they can have more customers per minute. Aldi is a big player here. The cashiers are trained and drilled to be super fast. There are no baggers, but enough room to pack your stuff yourself later. Recently they added a new kind of "double line". Now there is enough space for two trolleys right behind the cashier. Each line has their own card reader. The cashier has minimum waiting time for the next customer. Also almost zero time for customer interaction or any talk. Probably effective, but it really feels rushed out.
You only need room for one cart behind the registers. They pack the same time the next customer gets scanned.
And if people don't have enough space to get by you while you unload your cart into your trunk, then they should learn how to drive or buy a smaller car.
unbroken baguettes are a privilege of those who use reusable bags and bag their own groceries
Yeah, I was thinking this is a bit ridiculous. That sucker looks to be an easy 2 or so feet long. Unless you're making something that's extremely long it's getting cut up anyway.
Squashing bread is a true crime.
My first thought when I saw this post was, "That's not a baguette, that's french bread." I never connected that the gigantic long bread at the store with the stale dry crust that they label as "french bread" is supposed to be a baguette, which is French. Like they are too ashamed to actually call it a baguette because it kind of sucks but that's definitely what it's supposed to be.
Is french bread a regional thing in the US?
They call it stick bread (stokbrood) where I'm from, and I've seen it called french sticks in the UK. I guess we all just can't accept the french having a reasonable name for something.
In the US, baguette refers to the shape, so you can get a "sourdough baguette" which is not French style bread, or "sourdough french bread" which can be either sourdough in baguette shape or a round loaf of French style sourdough or American style sourdough made with French sourdough culture and you can get "French sandwich rolls" and "Sliced French bread" which are both made with the same ingredients that French baguettes are- flour, water, yeast and salt.
So there are people out there that don't unhinge their jaw to eat an entire sub, olive-on-a-toothpick included?
The armpit section
I don't know, in a world where people will pay for a jar of some egirls bath water, I'm willing to bet that someone would pay extra for a nibble on some moist armpit baguette.
No. I don't think it's still a thing, but look up Belle Delphine if you want to know about it.
As a french baguette amateur I can confirm this is how you pack a traditional industrial baguette.
Where I come from they'd tie her limbs to 3 horses and have the horses run away from each other.
Look, recognizing that the vast, vast majority of people have 4 limbs is not ableist, and I'm sorry that you're so interested in being offended on somebody else's behalf that you think it is.
Does it matter if that bitch is getting cut up anyway? Unless you're about to Scooby Do that shit
Nice of your grocery store to pay for someone to bag your groceries, though. Ours pretty much just throws it on the floor for us to deal with.