A Rant About Holy Bread & Sainsbury's

[Robert Bruce]

I have never known the bakery section at Sainsbury's supermarkets to be as bad as the one at Newbury. I cannot tolerate the mass manufactured and wrapped pap bread. I eat Wholemeal and prefer it to be sliced while I wait.

Ever since the entire shop was renovated and made bigger, the bakery department has not yet sussed that:

1.They are the worst for customer relations. Zero engagement skills. They prefer to ignore us customers and scurry away in the hope that another staffer will serve. The British staff do not greet customers at all. A Sri Lankan man who works there is absolutely brilliant. He is so courteous and smiles plus says those magic words, "May I help you?" and "Thank You" and smiles all the while. He alone makes using the bakery on weekends so much better. WHen he is not there I get the surly 'am I bovvered' attitude. Not nice. And you'd think complaining to management would sort the problem out? No way.

Oh I forgot to say - we customers are not allowed to use the machine. It is hidden out of line of sight where only staff can operate it. No other Sainsbury shop has this problem. I have been using their other branches at Wantage, Reading, Oxford........all have properly baked bread anfd the slicer works 100% correctly.


2. How often the new superduper de luxe bread slicer has broken down (yes Michael!) is beyond a joke. It is always broken and I think it is just an excuse to not slice the loaves of customers. They claim the slicer rips out the centre of the loaves! They lie. It is bad baking (or should I say oven time) skills. I have returned so many loaves to the supermarket but they still do not resolve the problem of holy bread. Or a loaf with no middle bit! They claim the slicer does this but on inspecting the holes in each slice of the countless loaves I have bought from them, there is no shredding. The holes appear to have occured at a stage of the oven process and has smooth edges.

Why am I ranting about a bakery department none of you will ever visit? Why the hell not. I gotta rant somewhere don't I?!

[Michael Alexander]

Robert, We use to have a double bread slicer on the floor for the customers..... however we removed it into the back of the bakery, employed a young lad and all he does is slice the bread...

Now, the reason why we did this....

1) The customers kept putting warm bread into the machine, thereby tearing the bread, which became wastage.....

2) Customers forced the lever, causing major blade replacement problems...

3) There was always a rush crowd on the machine at peak times and folk started to complain they only had an hour for lunch....

4) The mess, gee! I don't know how they cut there bread, they always left slices stuck in the machine, pieces on the floor and there was always a carpet of crumbs  scattered around that section of the store...

5) Noise factor, especially when the re was  a blade grinding against the plate...

6) Safety factor, some parents don;t keep an eye on their kids whilst they slice their bread..... I was petrified to see a young boy try and grab a slice of his mom''s brad, whilst the loaf was half way through the slice.... blades and fingers....

My blades have now last the longest they ever have, the bread is already sliced when the rush comes in.... the store looks cleaner where the slice was, quieter....and if you still want a full loaf without it being sliced.... just ask, it can be arranged....

Ok! we ain't Sainsbury.... but that;s how we do it here in the desert.....