Any idea what day or time the supermarket employees go around with their yellow stickers? Would this be a consistent policy across different branches? It's been a real winner for me to still enjoy meat frequently without breaking the bank but it seems totally random whether or not I find any but I'm very inconsistent with my shopping times.
Reduced to Clear/Quick Sale Items at Supermarkets
flembots on 06/05/2022 - 15:01
Comments
Every supermarket have different set times, and sometimes staff do it late because they had other work to attend to.
Meat sells quickly when short dated. The only way to find decent deals on short-dated (especially twice discounted) meat is to find two supermarkets next to each other (e.g. Westgate, Highland park) because they're splitting/cannibalising sales. And pretty much only Countdown. Paknsave shifts too much volume to need short-dating, while NW generally have smaller butchery sections.
Also most Asian Supermarkets have butchery sections, and they generally offer cheaper prices. They do their specials every Friday & the weekend.
Highland park only has 1 countdown now, the other one closed
Oh darn, was there a everything-must-go sale? In particular the liquor aisle??
dont know, wasn't there,
I've never seen anyone at our local Pak'n'Save in Dunedin checking dates or reducing prices in the meat section, but in the central city Countdown store it seems that every time I go in there no matter what time day or night there's someone with one of those price gun thingies checking to see what can be reduced.
Remember the good old days when your local butcher didn't reduce anything that was nearing its BB they just changed it into another product? They'd have prime fresh porterhouse on Monday, by Friday it had turned into marinated porterhouse then by the following Friday it was some kind of casserole or pie. Them were the days.
For what it's worth, My local put their reduced for quick sale stock out at around 8:30am.
I know my local Countdown in Porirua does this on Monday morning. I was having a day off one time and went in to Countdown on a Monday morning, got a lot of reduced meat pack, I was so happy about that 😁
I used to work as a butcher and the first job in the morning is to pull the short dated stock to mark it down. Your best bet at a foodstuffs store would be as soon as it opens.
First thing Saturday and Sunday mornings here. (Pak n Save) But those are my usual shopping days, maybe it happens every weekday as well. I dont go FIRST first thing. Usually half hour after opening. My theory being if you are there too early staff haven't had a chance to reduce it all.
Tried that this weekend and no luck. Either not much to discount this weekend or they do things differently at my local countdown.
Between 0800 and 0900 seems to be the sweet spot at my local Countdown, based on weekend visits. Sometimes I've literally lurked around the meat section as the sticker person works down the row until they get to the bits I want lol
Update: found an employee with the sticker gun marking down the meat at Countdown today (Monday) at 9am
Final update.
I was there again today and saw an employee marking down and noticed the time the stickers are printed is on the stickers. Like so.
So for my countdown: meats around 9am. Fish and seafood around 11:30am. Deli around 3pm.
So as long as your store is consistent, you can find out what time of day they do the marking down as long as you can find one discounted item in the same department.
jackpot. Thanks @flembots.
Gold-tier tip right here.
My experience is that it varies across almost every supermarket - you probably need to work it out for, say, the half dozen that are within easy reach of you, and see which one(s) work best for you.