[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Not sure if I'm crazy, or if it's true. I swear the food at that store is lower quality than anywhere else. I don't really shop there unless it's for socks or toys, but last week I had to buy things from pretty much every department, so I went to Walmart.

I don't care about sweat socks or Lego, at least, my feet and my daughter don't complain about their respective qualities, but when it comes to food? I just need to know if I'm biased, or if other people figure the same.

Here are my examples... I love pickles. Polski ogorki till I die. Almost always Bicks, but the Walmart I was at didn't have them, so I bought the Great Value brand pickles, and they're f'ing nasty. Hard to explain, but they're just not right.

I also bought some Armstrong cheese. Old, Cheddar. It's....dry. Maybe not the end of the world, but WTF? I eat pickles and cheese as a snack pretty regularly. I know their taste and texture, not that I'm some kind of connoisseur, but I know what they're supposed taste like. I buy old cheddar Safeway brand all the time, and it's not Sahara dry. Is Armstrong just this way, or is it Walmart knock off level?

Bullseye BBQ sauce. Yeah, yeah, give me hell for buying that stuff. I love the Blazin Chipotle. Bought a bottle of that, went to add it to a marinade the other day, and it pours out like water. Pissed me off because I added way too much and had to scoop some out with a spoon. Seriously, is it watered down?

Finally, I bought some chicken drumsticks. It was an 8 pack, and we really only eat 4, so I opened the thing and put half in the marinade, and went to ziploc the other 4, and the goddamn things still have the quills sticking out of them. Seriously?

So am I crazy, or was my bi-annual trip to Walmart grocery another reinforcement of why I never buy food there? And if the human food is such a step down, I'm wondering if their pet food is also Grade F, as that's what I usually go there for. It's pretty much a giant warehouse for my pet food, shampoo, toys, and socks.

So about the Pickles at Wal Mart. Many years ago, Wal Mart kept going to Bicks and wanting cheaper and cheaper pickles. Bicks made the Great Value pickles Fo Wal Mart at the time. Finally Wal Mart wanted thier pickles so cheap tha Bicks could not compromise the quality any further and refused to deal with Wal Mart, so they went to India for their Great Value pickles and yes they suck.

As for name brand goods, I've always believed they are the same quality however Wal Mart does often demand different packaging, and portion size for marketing/ pricing reasons. 976ml Milk, 1.75L Coke, 600g Cheese, etc.... All so they don't have to worry about having to match sale prices as those siz s are exclusive to Wal Mart.

As for chicken, well it's mostly ML prime or from either Lillydale or Sunrise and as far as I know the same batches of drums could go to any of the retailers. The worst part of groceries at Wal Mart is the staff are not trained to know anything about the departments. The guy working in produce is not a Produce Guy, the bakery manager is not a baker, the kid stocking the fresh meat was working in the electronics department yesterday.