Do you trust grocery services to select produce?

No. I’ve been shopping in person since May 2020 because I couldn’t stand having someone else choosing my produce.

I only order non perishable items in pick up orders. I don't know if that makes me a control freak. I just like to pick my own. Whether I am looking for freshness, size, ripeness, etc I know I care more about what I get than the shopper does.

I do almost all of my own shopping. The only time I will do a pick up is if it is a better price to buy online than in store. Target will have online only discounts so I will order online then, but really shouldn't I get the discount for being willing to go get it myself instead of Target having to pay an employee to gather the order for me?

I’ve been pretty impressed by the produce my Whole Foods shoppers have picked. I have tried it with Amazon Fresh and had very mixed results and don’t use them for produce.

The very first time I ordered something from the produce section, cilantro, it was actually floating in greenish murky water inside the plastic bag and the tips of the leaves were black.  You could not have picked a more disgusting batch if you tried.  The only thing I could think of as to why this occurred is that I placed my order on a Monday afternoon, requesting delivery for Tuesday.  I seriously wondered if the shopper picked up my order on Monday and left it in the trunk of their hot car until Tuesday afternoon.  Lesson learned.

I only added it to my order because I really needed it for my taco soup and wasn’t feeling well enough to make a store run.  Thankfully I didn’t need any other produce.  They refunded the money without a hassle because I emailed a photo of the goopy mess along with the receipt showing the day/time I placed the order. There was no way it could have degraded to that state under normal conditions.

The majority of the delivery people driving for Instacart when it first started in my area were men.  At least that was my experience.  During the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to try ordering produce with my Costco orders because I just did not want to go out.  I don’t think the men knew how to choose decent produce.  They didn’t check the dates on packaged produce either.  Or check for mold.  

I learned to leave instructions on every single item from the produce section telling them to check for the expiration date choosing only the one that would last the longest and to look for moldy bits.  Fortunately Costco food turns over so fast that it doesn’t usually spoil on the shelves.  Well, strawberries do, but on those, I told them to turn the box over and check for wet looking spots or fuzzy mold.  I began to receive decent produce after that.  I think the drivers learned pretty quickly that they would get complaints if they delivered junk vegetables.  The produce from Costco was much better than that first Walmart order.

After a couple of very bad experiences with the produce part of a grocery order at the beginning of COVID, I do all my produce and meat/poultry shopping myself in-person.

I don't think that I am a control freak; I just want edible produce and meat products.

One bag of coleslaw that I bought must have been left out in the heat somewhere - not sure where as it was a morning order - and it literally was fermenting in the bag. The ham I ordered from Walmart for Easter ended up weighing 0.75 pounds when it was dropped off. For my family of 4. Yeah, no. I had to go into the store to pick up a ham myself and wasn't happy about it because that was at the beginning of COVID. That was the end of produce and meat products for me.

I’ve actually had fairly good luck with my Instacart shoppers. Especially when it’s a woman.
I had one guy bring me a bundle of radishes instead of the beets I ordered, which made me laugh.

Now my 16 y/o daughter? I recently discovered I need to teach her how to pick out a good tomato.

Nope. They just grab

I’m not a control freak but the shoppers I’ve had bring back terrible items. Produce that shouldn’t even be available for purchase and they dgaf. So no more produce orders for me.

I admit to being a produce control freak, but I have had to relinquish that part of myself a few times the last few months for various reasons. I’ve had to do 3 Instacart orders in the last 3 months, once because my car was in the shop over grocery shopping day and twice over the last two weeks because of Covid. Still need groceries!

Anyway, 2/3 orders were perfect. The shoppers chose produce I would have chosen myself. I also tried to keep it pretty easy by opting for easy produce like cucumbers, strawberries, blueberries, potatoes, and onions. Stuff that’s easy to identify if it’s bad, and not things like bananas or melons where I can be pretty particular. The last time I ordered though the shopper picked a rotten, soft cucumber. It was disgusting and I knew it was bad before I even unwrapped it.

I was able to get a refund but I was still left cucumber-less and we devour them! It was a bummer. I was very happy to finally be able to be out of isolation so I could go back to choosing my own produce.

Not at mine.  However, I'm über picky about my produce and much prefer the quality at Central Market.  But even there I don't trust them to choose my produce.  I'm even pickier about how/where my bananas are packed.  I fully admit I have issues!  

The only time I've let someone else pick my produce is when we subscribed to a CSA. 

I had no complaints about the box, but missing buying our produce, so stopped the service. 

This thread is timely as DH just asked me if I wanted him to go to the store for me 😂 Not only am I a produce control freak, I’m also a meat and deli control freak. We mainly shop at two different stores. To limit time inside we would do curbside pick up for most items at the one store with the cheaper prices and then I would go to the other store just for meat and produce because it’s higher quality. I’m the kind of person that needs to see what I’m getting. The pandemic kicked my donut habit because I couldn’t see the donuts beforehand. They got verrrry skimpy on the frosting sometimes and had I’d known I would have picked a different kind. Disappointed too many times.