waitrose

Headington Headlines #62

TonyOX3

Here’s my weekly round-up of local news for 7 – 13 May —

The first mid-month Headington farmers’ market happened on Friday. It’s now on twice a month on the second and fourth Fridays, 8:00 to 13:30 on Kennett Road.

The County Council announced two new free bus services, H1 & H2.

The Council’s decision to hold the next NE Area Forum in the Town Hall instead of somewhere in the Headington area came in for criticism. Local LibDem councillor @DavidRundle said he wouldn’t attend the meeting but would instead spend the time on Ward business. The meeting is on Monday 21 May.

Cheney School parents voted against the school becoming an academy.

A prisoner out on day release and working in one of the charity shops is alleged to have assaulted another person working at the shop and then absconded. He’s now been caught.

Thames Valley Police @ThamesVP are appealing for information after a disturbance at a property in Headley Way on Monday 7 May.

Waitrose’s application for extended licensing hours was granted. They can now sell alcohol from 07:00 every day of the week even though they don’t open until 07:30 Monday to Saturday and 10:00 on Sundays.

The Planning Inspector for the Barton Area Action Plan hearing has been appointed. The hearing will be in the week beginning 16 July.

McDonalds run a charity – Ronald McDonald House – in the JR Children’s Hospital. It provides accommodation for parents whose children are in the hospital. Carl Room who runs several McD’s outlets around Oxford received an award (it doesn’t say who from) for his work for the charity.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

Active topics on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Free bus services H1 and H2
  • Bus stop to Barton in Castle Street
  • Restaurant application for former Tote betting shop in Marston Road
  • Savills Invite to Public Exhibition re proposed new scheme for the student housing development on St Clements car park
  • Lessons on Neighbours Online and Social Inclusion
  • Can someone suggest a person to repair my leaking garden shed roof?
  • North East Area Forum
  • Garden Waste Brown Bin subscription renewal
I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Bread on open shelves with ‘flu around

TonyOX3

People are dying of ‘flu. Vaccine stocks are said to be running low. Hospitals are reporting increased numbers of cases of serious resipratory illnesses. The Dept of Health is running a campaign to increase awareness of the ease with which respiratory viruses spread, exhorting us to use tissues and wash our hands frequently. Time to panic? No of course not, but going around the shops you can’t help notice the number of people coughing, often without taking any care not to spread their germs.

So I can’t understand why Waitrose and some other shops have their ‘speciality’ breads and pastries on open display. Anyone standing near the bread counter in Waitrose and coughing into the air is going to leave their contamination on the bread which the next person is going to buy and eat. As soon as I saw the set-up when the store opened I decided I wouldn’t buy any unwrapped bakery items from the open shelves.

Am I being paranoid? I hope not: just being someone who prefers not to be ill if possible. And the solution’s simple – just put the bread and buns in clear perspex containers with lift-up lids. Other stores do it so why not Waitrose?

I raised this with managers in the Headington store several times in the months after they opened but never had any constructive response. More recently the company’s Customer Service people have told me (personal email 16/11/2010) “The only requirement is a sneeze screen which should be in place, it is for us to decide the nature and size of this” and “Additional signage has been introduced to discourage handling the products directly and utensils/ tongs, bags are readily available on the fixture.” I asked what a “sneeze screen” was: it seems each shelf acts as a sneeze screen for the one below, which seems to me to miss the point.

I plan to ask the local Environmental Health people for their view on this and I’ll post any progress here. Meanwhile if you agree that you’d like to see the bread under cover please say so in the store, and leave a comment here. If you’re a public health professional and can refer me to any research which shows the Waitrose “sneeze screen” system does or doesn’t stop potentially infectious droplets falling onto the produce I’d be very interested to have the reference. Or if you think it’s not a problem and I should just stop worrying about it and get a life please feel free to say so.

Let them eat cake

TonyOX3

This isn’t going to be much of a rant – more of an injunction to Waitrose to get their act together. It concerns bread. Fresh, brown, unsliced bread to be precise. For those who don’t know, Waitrose sells three types of large brown loaf: Heyford (£1.69), Organic Tin (£1.45), and Long Tin (£1.25) (the prices may differ by a few pence). We buy the cheapest when it’s available and the organic otherwise. We never buy the Heyford as it’s too expensive for what it is, and makes far too many crumbs!

Here’s the problem. These loaves are sold from the shelves in identical brown bags with a transparent panel. The bags are unlabelled and there’s no bar code on them so the checkout staff have to identify the loaf at the till. Their computer screen shows them pictures of loaves but sometimes not all the varieties appear, and even when they do it can’t be that easy to distinguish the different types from the thumbnail images. Here they are from the Waitrose website with my labels – spot the difference!

Out of the last seven times we’ve bought one of these loaves, six times the loaf has been checked through the till as Heyford, the most expensive and probably the first to show up on the till screen. The error seems to be consistently this way and in the shop’s favour. At over 40p more than the long tin, that would have been £2.40 we’d have been overcharged if we hadn’t been alert and asked for a correction. It’s not the checkout staff’s fault, although they could ask if they’re not sure, but I don’t think it’s really their job in a work environment where the barcode rules. Waitrose should get one of their suited management staff around the shop to sort out a simple way of identifying the bread. I suggest a sticky label with a barcode.

So caveat emptor. If you buy this bread (and maybe others, I don’t know) watch out to see you’re not overcharged.