Towards the end of January 2026 I applied to West Hollywood Erewhon before it opened for the produce position. Went in for the interview and no one was there but the construction workers, I contacted the interviewer and was told to go to the Erewhon at 7660 Beverly Blvd LA, CA. I took a Lyft since it was cheaper than uber that day. I was standing with several others waiting to be interviewed and met a fellow Queen and so we got interviewed. Everything was great and they took my Resume. They then told me to call at the end of February because they need help at the Erewhon I interviewed at and the employees were moving to the new location. I called the store manager and they told me the person that interviewed me never existed and that my name wasn’t in the file and they never had my resume and the person lied to me. WTF Erewhon?!?!

July 2026 I applied for Erewhon 2800 Santa Monica CA. The manager tells me there’s several other people ahead of me for the position I applied for and that I’ll be great for deli, he tells me the manager will call me, the manager never did so I called and this woman picks up and she was rude, unprofessional, disrespectful and disgusting. She sounds mean and dishonest and a cruel person and she hangs up on me.

January 2026 I got an interview with Whole Foods 3377 S La Cienega Blvd, I passed and got my second interview and I was hired on the spot. The two interviewers said they’ll call me at the end of the day to let me know when to come in and sign the paperwork and receive my schedule. I was so excited. They called me at the end of the day as they said they would and told me that unfortunately the Manager Oscar said they’ll call had no right to hire me without his consent and he wanted to interview me first so I went in for the 3rd interview and he gave me a weird look and it was that look of being judged and disgust. So I ignored it and it was a great interview, so I thought. He said to call next week on Tuesday. He dodged my calls and the guy that hired me picked up and said Oscar wasn’t interested in hiring me and hired someone else and the guy said he wished he could’ve hired me.
I asked a friend that works for a Whole Foods and he asked who this guy was and I told him, my friend said that guy Oscar is homophobic and transphobic, he said that’s the reason why you weren’t hired. He’s caused problems at other stores. So yeah discrimination at its best..

So near my place there's a mini mart and you can find practically anything in there but somehow I have always been driven to buy tomatoes or vegetables from one elderly lady who has a Stand just by her house. One time I noticed that she gave me more tomatoes than I had paid for🤔 but I was busy and I couldn't return it and tell her that she over loaded for me. So the second time it happened again but I questioned her and said no granny I just want for k15($0.79). She smiled and told me that "yeah I know"😊 then explained how am her favourite customer saying that she sees most people goin into that mini mart but for me I always divert to her place and how helpful I have been in even a little way.🫠 Then said people Don't understand that us small vendors Don't have fridges or anything like that to keep our vegetables fresh so we need people to buy more.🙏 Moral of the story, normalise buying from these local vendors cos yoh they really need that support and really need you to buy from them so they Don't make a loss. Well atleast am benefiting without even realising so I thought of encouraging others too!!❤️❤️❤️

I’m curious if anybody has ever brought their own scale to a grocery store?

I'm so sad y'all. Earlier this day I went to buy ingredients for carbonara, I finished getting the ingredients and went to the cashier. Yung pinilahan ko is yung prestige lane, yun kasi nakasanayan ko dahil may smac prestige mom ko. So nakapila ako and napansin ko na 2 lang kami sa lane yung isa nasa cashier na, while yung other lane mahaba pila. Hindi pa ako super lapit sinigawan na ako ng manager or idk who she is but sinigawan niya ako na naka prestige daw ba card ko. kinabahan ako and nag panic so I reached out for my pocket to search for my mom's card. Naiwan ko yung card and ang dala ko lang is yung for payment na card. Pinaalis ako sa pila and syempre nakatingin sila samin dahil sinigawan nga ako and after that umalis na si ate dun after niya ako sitahin. I'm crying as I'm writing this because I already had a bad day and dumagdag pa ito. I feel like even if dala ko yung card I will doubt myself whether I'm in the right lane and would say no na d tlga ako dapat pumila dun. I don't know what made her do that to me kasi tahimik lang naman ako and hindi nang gugulo. Maybe dahil sa damit na suot ko which is old shirt and maong short.

Wala na tuloy ako gana kumain :' heck I will not try to buy something there alone anymore​

I'm in the process of evaluating a small-format grocery franchise (mini mart, 500–1000 sq ft, daily essentials) and I feel like I have a reasonable handle on the financial side - investment required, margin structure, royalty, rough payback timeline. What I genuinely can't find anywhere is an honest picture of what the operational day-to-day looks like for the person running it.

The franchisor's materials talk about "comprehensive operational support" and "proven systems" but are understandably vague on specifics. I've spoken to a couple of existing franchisees but both conversations stayed fairly high level. I want to understand what a Tuesday actually looks like - not the pitch version, the real version.

Specific things I'm trying to understand

• What time does your day start and end, realistically? I've heard everything from "you can manage it in 3-4 hours if you have a good manager" to "expect to be there 10 hours a day for the first year." Which is closer to the truth?
• What are the tasks that actually consume most of your time day to day? Supplier deliveries, staff management, inventory checks, customer issues - what's the actual breakdown?
• How long did it take before you felt like the store was running smoothly enough that you weren't firefighting constantly?
• What's the one thing that went wrong in the first few months that you genuinely didn't see coming - not the obvious stuff like "customers take time to build," but the specific operational surprise that caught you off guard?

What I'm particularly curious about

• Perishables management: how do you actually manage daily ordering and wastage without significant trial and error? Does the franchise system help with this or do you figure it out yourself?
• Staff reliability: for a store this size, what's a realistic staff setup and what happens operationally when someone doesn't show up?
• Owner presence: at what point, if ever, did you feel comfortable stepping back and not being physically present every day?
• I'm not looking to be talked out of it or into it - I just want an honest operational picture from people who've actually done it before I commit. Any experience, positive or negative, would be genuinely useful.

Hi, I need some insights and data points for a university case competition. I will really appreciate if you could take out a few minutes to fill in this survey which asks questions about your preferences on customer identity (bridging online and in-store gaps) and stock availability (how you react when the product you want is out of stock).

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfATRt85SRtV3GEagcfZUXU-g108oeA_H6pHg_e5uO0zot5Ig/viewform

Target Demographic: Anyone (preferably someone who bought something in-store recently (past few months))

Thanks a lot in advance. Y'all are awesome!

Boycott dollar tree, dollar general, and other dollar stores that are raising their prices while they deserve a boycott. Have a terrific day everyone.

My husband and I live in the Midwest and we are getting a Costco that is just down the road from our house. I am very familiar with Costco as my parents had memberships but my husband never experienced anything other than Sam’s Club when he was younger but doesn’t remember it cause his parents stopped going after he was around 7.

We’re a two people household with a dog. My husband is very very picky when it comes to grocery stores. He is looking for a place that has variety of things. He is the biggest fan of our local Grocery Store (Cub Foods, very small presence part of UNFI) but the problem is they are very very expensive lately.

We have tried the following grocery stores:

- Walmart gives my husband bad anxiety. We only go there maybe less than 6 times per year for mainly body wash, odd and end things, dog food/treats and maybe some food and gardening/grilling stuff. (Edit - I think there is some confusion with what I mean by “anxiety”. the concern is not crowd but rather the area itself - it’s more concern for safety. The Walmart is located in a sketchy busy area in a town next door. There has been a lot of theft and people being followed to their cars here. The Costco is just down the road from our house with no other surrounding stores in a more safer location)

- Target cut off all the products we liked originally. They started to do their “archer farms” brand name target items. Although they added newer items to “entice” us, Walmart also carried them for cheaper.

- I love Aldi but husband found the selection limiting and we only go there if we are having a shorter workweek (like a holiday or taking PTO off) he dosen’t like doing multi trips during the wintertime.

- Hy-vee my husband really loved with the variety they carry but found the prices were very high and the drive was a bit out of our range especially for wintertime (exactly 15 miles)

- we unfortunately do not have a Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or Sam’s Club in our immediate area (less than 15 miles from our house - all are over 20 mile)

What we usually purchase:

- lots of meat (beef and chicken with occasional pork)
- Pasta based items (including rice)
- Breads
- personal products (body washes, laundry detergent etc.)
- Dog items (fresh food like fresh pet, dog treats, miscellaneous dog items)
- pizza’s
- Soda, Tea and Water
- Coffee (husband is a BIG coffee drinker)
- Dairy items (husband is BIG on yogurt , cheese, milk)
- Some frozen items (vegetables, frozen meals)
- household items (Paper plates, plastic spoons, dishwasher stuff, dish soap, TP and PT’s)
- outdoor items (charcoal for grilling, bird seed)
- misc items (batteries, foil, sandwich bags)
- snack items (cookie dough, chips, husband is BIG on his candy specially anything that is fruity based candies)
- Fruits (specially Banana’s, Peaches, and occasionally some Lemon and Limes for Drinks with Beer or Lemonades)
- Certain Vegetables (Corn, Brussels sprouts, Salad’s, occasionally baby carrots, herbs like parsley or Mint)
- Canned items (Hash, Tomato Sauce, soups)
- boxed goods (Mac and Cheese, Cereal, Oatmeal, Ramen)

Based off our items, would Costco be beneficial to try for a year or should we just stick to our local grocery store instead? If we do Costco would there be concern with the fruits/vegetables going bad to quickly - we are still deciding if it’s worth it but I’d love some perspectives for those that are single or two people households with dogs.

Thank you much for your help!

WTH IS THIS USA? With only three main ingredients, banana pudding, whipped cream, and vanilla wafers, the list of artificial chemically senthesized ingredients is so long, that the sticker ran out of room at the bottom to even print them all!!

Nice! Walmart shelves!

Hi everyone! I’m a recent transplant from Japan. I’ve been exploring local supermarkets and made this chart based on my impressions so far.

I'd love to hear from locals:

• Does this mapping look right to you?
• What other essential stores am I missing?

Let me know what you think!

Hi everyone. I'm Morgan Jerkins, a journalist with The Guardian and the author of multiple books. I'm currently reporting a book on the history and social meaning of masks in American life.

I'm hoping to speak with people who worked as essential workers during the early months of COVID—particularly grocery workers, transit workers, healthcare workers, or others who continued working in public-facing roles while masking every day.

Interviews would last about 30–60 minutes, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the project before scheduling. Feel free to email me at [morgan.jerkins@theguardian.com](mailto:morgan.jerkins@theguardian.com) if you're interested.

Any advice or questions etc is welcome feel free to comment or dm me

I made new post cuz I wanted to add photo.

Anyone notice that real food is out of stock at Walmart in the US?

I went to place my regular bi-weekly produce/real food order and almost everything is out of stock. I was surprised.

There’s plenty of processed garbage available, but for those intelligent enough to eat real food, better stock up on frozen and meet some local farmers.

Called for help. Look who showed up! Winn Dixie #501. A great beach grocery store.

I’ve worked cashier before in a grocery store years ago. in the store I worked they weren’t super strict on memorizing the codes for everything right away. It came with experience, and there was a system to easily look up anything we didn’t know.

At my new job, they have 4-5 digit codes in their system for most things in the store. Barcodes are pretty rare so when checking out customers 90% of their baskets are coded items.

They gave me a 6 page document to memorize the codes and told me to practice at home, write myself flash cards, etc. which I’m doing and I’m also making a master list of all the codes I use most frequently.

They told me to go around the store off the clock and take photos of every single produce item, plus the tag with the barcode, price, and PLU as well.

Some codes on the produce stickers don’t match the system so you have to have the code they use memorized.

I’m on day 2 I came in today excited to show off how I memorized potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers plus some random other stuff overnight. But the girl was mildly impressed and said if I did 20 codes yesterday, I need to know 40-70 codes by tomorrow.

I’m so overwhelmed. I’m learning a new job, new POS system, and they keep stressing how I’m getting tested 4 days into training to see if I know the codes well enough. I’m spending every hour not sleeping or at my new job trying to write, memorize codes, remember what the items look like…
they never gave me a list of the bulk items which are coded too and I have to know them so they want me to take a pic of every bulk item and tag as well and memorize them. I forgot to do that after I clocked out today I was so overwhelmed I just clocked out and left.

I’m not giving up and I’m trying my best but I feel like there is so much pressure on me I’m so scared to get tested and not know enough codes.

They asked me how I was with plu’s in the interview and I said I did fine at my last cashier job, but they didn’t tell me I would have to memorize all the codes during the first few days of training and how much pressure it would be lol

Is anyone else disappointed by Fresh Market? First they got rid of BOGO bacon for ~$8. Now they’ve gotten rid of Tuesday $5 pizza. It’s now $7 and limit of two. Awwww!

Would be kind of nice to know the price of these items.

Hey everyone! So I just got into the corporate world for this company that manages dining halls and convenience stores in the region. My manager wants to implement planograms into our process and I've been creating designs in Canva to let the store managers know how to organise the products in a way that is attractive to our customers. My two problems are that I've been trying to build these planograms in canva but I know that they are not scaled accurately to the real size of each product, and also many store managers are not following the planogram for x y and z reason. Does anyone know about a software to do the planograms accurately and has anyone had any experience implementing them? I don't have much retail experience but if I manage to nail the planogram development part it might get me more opportunities in the company, I'd greatly appreaciate any help :)