We Finally Know Why Grocery Stores Mist Produce (Don’t Buy It!)

There’s a good reason the checkout lines are so tight. Let’s say you’re waiting there and, after you take one more look at your cart, you see there are certain things you don’t REALLY need, so it would be better not to buy them. So, you’re looking around trying to find a spot to leave them somewhere aside. Good luck with that!

Checkout lines are designed like this, so you can’t find a place to put these items down, so you make the subconscious decision to buy all these things after all. Take a closer look at your cart before getting there or just stick to the list to avoid this!

Also, the checkout line is probably the most tempting part of the supermarket. All those candies, shiny magazines, gums, and cool gadgets are there to grab your attention while you’re patiently waiting your turn. Many people just automatically grab something from there while waiting, even though they weren’t planning to buy it in the first place.

Have you ever seen someone in front of the supermarket washing the shopping carts? Of course not because no one does it. Yup, shopping carts are really filthy. So many people touch them during just one day, let alone this whole time they have been in the store. It would be good to wash your hands every time after shopping. Or you can wipe the handle down before using it. You’ll see some stores have wipes right next to the entrance.

Spraying water makes fruits and vegetables look pretty, plus it adds weight to them, so you might end up paying more for them. These are the two actual reasons why workers spray them with water — no one does it to keep them fresh. Plus, spraying water won’t keep fruit and vegetables fresh — it will just make them rot more quickly.

Spraying water on them or not, wash all the fresh fruits and vegetables you buy. You know how you sometimes like to pick up a pear or a peach to see if they’re ripe enough and put them back down if not? Well, you’re not the only one who thought of that, so stick to washing your hands every single time you come back from the store.

Check out the packages of fruits, vegetables, and meat you’re buying, even though you have to be prepared you won’t be able to see everything that’s inside. One Reddit user took a picture of bacon, so others can see what the visible slice looks like vs. the rest of those packed in a way you can’t see them well.

Another user shared an interesting trick to help them feel how much meat a pack of bacon actually has. And this only works at low temperatures. So, the fatty bits become stiffer before the meat does when the bacon is cold enough. That way, if you pick a cold pack of bacon that’s kinda stiff and hard to bend, you have one full of fat.

If you feel it’s kinda squishy, and you’re able to fold it in half relatively easily it means there’s more meat and less fat. Here’s one more interesting Reddit catch. It’s not a hack supermarkets use, it’s more like a bonus on your vegetables — a whole new ecosystem on your veggies. It’s for those situations when you want some extra flavors, but are running out of ideas.

Fish you buy in supermarkets is often mislabeled. When it comes to meat, it’s pretty lax with testing because you can tell the difference between, let’s say, pork and beef relatively easily. But it’s harder to do it with fish.

Some studies showed that a third of all fish on the market is not labeled properly. That means some expensive pieces such as salmon are replaced by other fish that look similar. The majority of that counterfeit fish is safe to eat, but there are some of it — such as snake mackerel — that can cause not-so-pleasant stomach issues.

Don’t trust expiration dates so blindly either. Of course, there’s a certain number of weeks milk can remain good after packaging, but supermarket meat departments are a different story. They do their labeling there with their own devices, which means regulations are not that strict. In other words, if an item is about to expire, but it still looks good, supermarkets can simply put a new label on it. That means they can extend the expiration date for a couple of days, sometimes even more than a week.

If possible, look for the food at the time when it first comes to the shelves. Or find some trusted butcher nearby. But if you stumble upon meat or something else that’s about to expire or has already passed the due date, you can negotiate for a better price. Just show the product to the staff and in most cases, they’ll be willing to lower the price. They’ll probably have to put the discount anyway, so this way it’s just easier for them and better for you. So always check the expiration date!

Pay attention to this because supermarkets mostly won’t get shut down after they fail an inspection. Inspections are way more focused on restaurants, so you’re more likely to hear a restaurant closed because they failed health standards rather than a grocery store. So going to a small local bakery instead of buying supermarket bread and generally trying smaller local businesses might not be a bad idea, these guys usually care a lot about their reputation.

This hack grocery stores use is not so gross, but it’s still worth knowing — they mostly place expensive stuff at eye level. Most of the population is right-handed, so most of us do the same movement reaching for stuff we want to buy. So things that will bring supermarkets the most profit are right there — at eye level, front-end center.

Sometimes there will even be some additional colorful mark-ups on these more expensive products that will make you buy them before even checking the others. So, look to the side and look up to find better deals, don’t just grab the first thing that gets into your visual field. Also, things that are geared towards kids are placed a little bit lower, so they’re at their eye level.

One Redditor shared a photo from one supermarket, where they had to cut out the bottom of laundry baskets, so shoplifters don’t fill them up and walk out. Another commentator said this is just a display version. That way, if you want to make a purchase, employees will go into the backroom and send the basket to the registers for when you’re ready to pay.

It feels so exciting when you’re going through those colorful newspaper inserts with special discounts. But they don’t make these to save you money. Their main purpose is to make you buy things you don’t really need, but you’ll get them anyway because you believe they’re on sale. Double-check all the coupons you’re about to use. Sometimes the “special” price they advertise is the same as the regular price without the coupon!

Bulk buying deals might sound great at first, but they can be a trap. First, the price difference between individual products and those in bulk doesn’t have to be that big, and you might end up buying way more stuff than you need. That means that either you’ll buy too much, so the items might go bad before you have a chance to use them, or you might eat and drink way more than you usually would. And neither of these options sounds good, and it’s definitely not saving money.

For example, one Reddit user noticed there’s a pack of 4 blades instead of 5, even though the price is the same, and they haven’t even changed the packaging. Check the prices of packages considering their weight too. One Redditor shared a photo of their catch, which might be tasty, but also quite expensive considering the size of the package. They usually shop for groceries online and since the week was pretty stressful, they were tired and didn’t check how tiny this block of cheese was.