The Meat at Walmart Scares Me

Try dealing with meat at a Walmart in China. There are people handling raw meat with their hands, although someone squeamish might be using a plastic bag like a glove. Even in Asian markets in the US, you might see fish exposed, but unpackaged beef or pork will always be behind glass at a butcher's counter.

59b716119803c51e008b47d7
 
A defunct Northeast supermarket chain, Pathmark, used to have a whole line of “No Frills” products.

It started slowly, with a few products, such as No Frills canned peas in the vegetable aisle. Gradually they added more products and within a year or two there was a whole No Frills ghetto on both sides of an entire aisle.

But it seems they disappeared within a few years. AFAIR, this was in the early to mid 1980s.

FB842E6C-B3CE-4D23-85C3-EC517A0E0DFA.jpeg

A9511D5F-A4F7-46E9-970F-8FF600B79DA2.jpeg
Anybody remember the spokeman in Pathmark TV commercials?

DAC59B68-0EAF-402A-852E-656442113FCE.jpeg

He was also an actor who appeared in the films Poltergeist, The China Syndrome, and a few others.
 

Lucky's still exists as a brand name and a division of Save-Mart. They had a disastrous entry into the Bay Area marketplace so they just bought the right to the Lucky name from Albertson's.

As for those generics, I do remember those yellow label generics that my Lucky's store sold in the 80s. I don't think it was a Lucky exclusive, but one where they were sold to different markets in different regions. The only photo I could find of them was this:

maxresdefault.jpg


same packaging as good old 'government cheese' :thumbsup2

40 years later and no matter what store inhabits the building in my hometown-the locals who have been around for awhile still refer to it as 'the luckybeta store' b/c it bounced between being a luckys and alpha beta a couple of times.
 
A defunct Northeast supermarket chain, Pathmark, used to have a whole line of “No Frills” products.

It started slowly, with a few products, such as No Frills canned peas in the vegetable aisle. Gradually they added more products and within a year or two there was a whole No Frills ghetto on both sides of an entire aisle.

But it seems they disappeared within a few years. AFAIR, this was in the early to mid 1980s.

View attachment 748799

View attachment 748800
Anybody remember the spokeman in Pathmark TV commercials?

View attachment 748801

He was also an actor who appeared in the films Poltergeist, The China Syndrome, and a few others.
Memories of my youth. I think he had a small recurring role on a Soap Opera too. We sometimes went to the Pathmark a few miles away growing up. It's now a ShopRite.
 
Lucky's still exists as a brand name and a division of Save-Mart. They had a disastrous entry into the Bay Area marketplace so they just bought the right to the Lucky name from Albertson's.

As for those generics, I do remember those yellow label generics that my Lucky's store sold in the 80s. I don't think it was a Lucky exclusive, but one where they were sold to different markets in different regions. The only photo I could find of them was this:

maxresdefault.jpg
I was a Lucky shopper in the early 1980's and bought a lot of those products included the one labeled BEER.
Albertsons sold generic products too at the time, but their labels were white.
 
same packaging as good old 'government cheese' :thumbsup2
That was darn good cheese. We had friends who live 150 miles from us and their church was given Lord knows how many pounds of that. Like a 5 pound brick for every member. Made amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.
Very frustrating to me when I worked at the food bank that there were people who would throw away any product in the food bag that was labeled "U.S.D.A. Commodity". Canned peaches, pears, fruit cocktail, corn, green beans........if you checked the code on the cans....all came from the same cannery that produced brand name stuff. Food bank had to put up signs asking people to return products they didn't want instead of throw them out because there were plenty of people in need of food who would eat them.
 
That was darn good cheese. We had friends who live 150 miles from us and their church was given Lord knows how many pounds of that. Like a 5 pound brick for every member. Made amazing grilled cheese sandwiches.

i agree! back in '82 when it was being distributed i worked for a publicly funded daycare and we got a delivery like they thought we had some kind of industrial fridges-NOT! just a couple of standard household issue. we loaded the fridges as best we could, tried to get every parent to take multiple bricks, tried soliciting people passing by to take some.....in the end staff was told to take as much as they wanted b/c otherwise it would spoil (probably a hundred or more pounds did :guilty: ). my mom had a fridge plus a spare in the garage so i ended up taking home 20 or 30 packages. we used that cheese forever (she froze a bunch).
 
Try dealing with meat at a Walmart in China. There are people handling raw meat with their hands, although someone squeamish might be using a plastic bag like a glove. Even in Asian markets in the US, you might see fish exposed, but unpackaged beef or pork will always be behind glass at a butcher's counter.

59b716119803c51e008b47d7
Shades of the ongoing battles between butcher shops in San Francisco's Chinatown and the health department over Peking Duck. Properly prepared Peking Duck violates a whole lot of health codes. Butchers point out that people have been eating properly prepared Peking Duck for nearly 2,000 years without getting sick.
 
Not really.

Maybe 10 years ago it did, but I occasionally buy some meat there.

I just want to see how many views my clickbait thread title will receive. :cool: It seems practically everyone has some thoughts about Walmart. What are yours?

Walmart stories often appear in my facebook and other newsfeeds. The comments are often hilarious.

I like the ones that whine about self checkouts and the lack of open staffed checkouts. Some say they won’t use self c/o unless they get a discount.

Heck, I’d gladly pay 5% more if my local Walmart had more than 6 self c/o’s.

I don't shop at Wal*Mart. Primarily for their labor practices: low pay, scheduling to keep people part time, few employees with heath care, etc. The fact that the owners are among the richest people in the US makes it even worse in my eyes because they can afford to treat people right. I also have a problem with them coming in, driving out competition with low prices and then raising prices once their competitors are gone.

I don't care if I have to pay a bit more for things. I am willing to do it to support companies that respect and care for their employees.
 
Last edited:
I don't shop at Wal*Mart. Primarily for their labor practices: low pay, scheduling to keep people part time, few employees with heath care, etc. The fact that the owners are among the richest people in the US makes it even worse in my eyes because they can afford to treat people right. I also have a problem with them coming in, driving our competition with low prices and then raising prices once their competitors are gone.

I don't care if I have to pay a bit more for things. I am willing to do it to support companies that respect and care for their employees.
I shop at WM yet do agree with you on some of your points. It's a conundrum because while I may prefer a different company's leadership or HR policies, money is tight and I live in a high Florida HCOL - hello: insane insurance crisis. :scared1:We're talking 100-300% increases every single year in home and car insurance- I do not exaggerate. And a slew of higher prices on other stuff I won't bore you with. It's very difficult to make it here on a lower to mid HHI.

When you gotta eat and every penny counts, it's not always feasible to take the high road - and pay higher prices local markets are charging for the exact same stuff. But that said, you make valid points.
 
I shop at WM yet do agree with you on some of your points. It's a conundrum because while I may prefer a different company's leadership or HR policies, money is tight and I live in a high Florida HCOL - hello: insane insurance crisis. :scared1:We're talking 100-300% increases every single year in home and car insurance- I do not exaggerate. And a slew of higher prices on other stuff I won't bore you with. It's very difficult to make it here on a lower to mid HHI.

When you gotta eat and every penny counts, it's not always feasible to take the high road - and pay higher prices local markets are charging for the exact same stuff. But that said, you make valid points.
I'll add to that any company is really able to shift from "higher road" philosophies at a moment's notice. Most people don't tend to do a deep dive into the companies they patronize with exception to high profile ones though.
 
I don't shop at Wal*Mart. Primarily for their labor practices: low pay, scheduling to keep people part time, few employees with heath care, etc. The fact that the owners are among the richest people in the US makes it even worse in my eyes because they can afford to treat people right. I also have a problem with them coming in, driving out competition with low prices and then raising prices once their competitors are gone.

I don't care if I have to pay a bit more for things. I am willing to do it to support companies that respect and care for their employees.
I def. agree with your points because Walmart is known for being a bully in that case. On the other hand a lot of people do say "I'd be willing to pay more" but majority of the times that increase in costs on the products you're purchasing it's hard to actually know that it's going into the employee's hands nor does it mean there aren't some poor working conditions (either company wide or location based) or underhanded business practices that go on. Seldom are companies, especially these days, a shining star in employment practices.
 
I shop at WM yet do agree with you on some of your points. It's a conundrum because while I may prefer a different company's leadership or HR policies, money is tight and I live in a high Florida HCOL - hello: insane insurance crisis. :scared1:We're talking 100-300% increases every single year in home and car insurance- I do not exaggerate. And a slew of higher prices on other stuff I won't bore you with. It's very difficult to make it here on a lower to mid HHI.

When you gotta eat and every penny counts, it's not always feasible to take the high road - and pay higher prices local markets are charging for the exact same stuff. But that said, you make valid points.
You make a completely valid point too. Sometimes people really can't afford to protest with their pocketbook and that's OK too. I had read about the insurance crisis in Florida. I am so sorry! I worry most about the seniors who moved there for the previous low cost of living who are now stuck between a rock and a hard place.
 
I def. agree with your points because Walmart is known for being a bully in that case. On the other hand a lot of people do say "I'd be willing to pay more" but majority of the times that increase in costs on the products you're purchasing it's hard to actually know that it's going into the employee's hands nor does it mean there aren't some poor working conditions (either company wide or location based) or underhanded business practices that go on. Seldom are companies, especially these days, a shining star in employment practices.
For groceries, I know for a fact that the main grocery store I frequent pays well and provides benefits. I also shop at Costco which is well known for their positive treatment of employees. The daughter of a friend has worked for them for 2 years and loves it and she is due for another raise in a few weeks. Both places do have to charge slightly more than Wal*Mart to make up for their higher labor costs. I'm ok with that. I'm not perfect and I strive to do better but I KNOW that Wal*Mart is a terrible employer so I make the choice to shop somewhere else because all companies are not the same.
 
For groceries, I know for a fact that the main grocery store I frequent pays well and provides benefits. I also shop at Costco which is well known for their positive treatment of employees. The daughter of a friend has worked for them for 2 years and loves it and she is due for another raise in a few weeks. Both places do have to charge slightly more than Wal*Mart to make up for their higher labor costs. I'm ok with that. I'm not perfect and I strive to do better but I KNOW that Wal*Mart is a terrible employer so I make the choice to shop somewhere else because all companies are not the same.
Oh for sure I'm just saying in general a lot of people use the phrase that they would be willing to pay more money for xyz but there's not a whole lot of actual knowledge that corporate is using the profit margins they get for good. It's usually just something people feel better about if that makes sense.

Costco is def. known for good treatment, we have Hy-Vee which is also known for that. However for Costco they did a Christmas special years back that went over how they select what things they will sell in their stores for the upcoming season. While they are good at giving people feedback, chances, etc they are also very strict extremely strict actually on things like pricing because they know their customers expect good pricing for items. They will tell vendors the same thing that Walmart does which is "you have to sell it for this price or unfortunately we can't sell your item in our stores". Some people spend years trying to get Costco to sell their items. They will also do things like "I need you to switch this material for this one". I think Costco is better in their treatment of vendors but they do still employ tactics to get items priced exactly what they want them to be in order for them to be sold at their stores.
 
Shades of the ongoing battles between butcher shops in San Francisco's Chinatown and the health department over Peking Duck. Properly prepared Peking Duck violates a whole lot of health codes. Butchers point out that people have been eating properly prepared Peking Duck for nearly 2,000 years without getting sick.

It's supposed to be OK as long as there's a heat lamp and the drippings are properly caught in drip pans. Some places don't even do that. Also - I haven't seen too many places that have Peking duck hanging. Those are almost always prepared freshly out of an oven and require all sorts of weird things like pumping air under the skin. Most places have just normal Cantonese style roast duck.

I've been to a number of Chinese restaurants where they won't serve Peking duck without advance notice (often a day in advance) since it has to be served reasonably quickly after coming out of the oven, and isn't the same if reheated - it loses the crispiness of the skin. I have been to a few places over the decades where they served Peking duck continuously where it didn't have to be ordered in advance. There was one place in Alameda called Peking Duck House that my Chinese friends took me to in my teens. It was really inexpensive and they'd have them carved with a Chinese style cleaver right in front of the table. And the carver wasn't necessarily Chinese either.
 
I have no problem with Walmart. I’m not a huge fan of some of their produce, but most stuff is fine. I live in a pretty small town and prices and/or selection at their competitors leaves a lot to be desired.
 












Save Up to 30% on Rooms at Walt Disney World!

Save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resorts Collection hotels when you stay 5 consecutive nights or longer in late summer and early fall. Plus, enjoy other savings for shorter stays.This offer is valid for stays most nights from August 1 to October 11, 2025.
CLICK HERE







New Posts







DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest

Back
Top