Let The Buyer Beware
Now that I’m safely out of the deli-from-hell (I called it quits last Saturday), I need to tell you something: Depending on where you shop, Deli-Fresh isn’t all it appears to be.
One of the litany of reasons that I bailed on this little job was the fact that there was a practice going on that I simply couldn’t be part of, and that was re-wrapping old food and selling it as fresh. Cheese, pizzas and what are known as Wet Salads - macaroni, potato, coleslaw and the like - were routinely pulled off the shelves in the morning and re-labelled as brand spanking new. Mould (not the extreme blue stuff, but the white spots that appear first and change the taste of everything) was trimmed off the cheese, the cheese was re-wrapped, and out it would go. Pizzas? On the shelf for four days instead of two. The only time they got junked was when the ham turned blue and the manager had gone home for the day. She inspected the garbage, you see.
Not long after I started, I had come across some pizza pepperoni that had passed its sell-by date six months previous. I put it next to the garbage and informed my boss about what I had found. I was told to slice it up and use it for pizzas. “But, it’s EXPIRED” I protested. I was told it was fine, and into the pizza prep cart it went.
Why was this a common practice? To minimize losses and maximize profits, of course. The manager took full advantage of the fact that it was a franchise store and not as tightly regulated as a corporate operation. “You have a bit more leeway here” she would explain. It’s a miracle that no one has been poisoned.
I doubt very much that other delis allow these shoddy practices, but I’ve learned enough about the game that no matter where I go, I’m going to look that much closer at the products I buy. I’ll make my own pizzas, stir up my own spinach dip and stay far, far away from any store-made egg salad sandwiches. As far as the small amounts of deli meats that we consume, I’ll stick to ham and turkey - products that I know have high turnover.
Beware, my friends, for all may not be exactly as it seems.
