The sniff test to save shop some cash

OUR supermarkets are now kindly going to allow us to purchase fruit and veg that they have bought too much of and it’s going off.

Apparently this will reduce the amount of food waste.

No it won’t – what it will do is pass the expense of their inefficiency to the customer.

To help us decide how manky the produce is a new test has been devised – the sniff test.

So into the store we go to the none-too-fresh fruit and veg counter, pick up a piece of fruit and sniff it, unbeknown to us someone had sniffed it beforehand, this person had a streaming cold, sneezed on the fruit then put it back, so we now have a cold as well as rotting fruit.

Moving on to the yoghurt we find no use-by date on own brand variety, but instructions to sniff test again; unless we are allowed to remove the lid, without a sense of smell rivalling a bloodhound, no way will this work.

Covid-19 robbed me of my sense of smell – will it be OK to ask another shopper to sniff my banana to see if it’s gone off before I buy it, hope they don’t take offence or collapse laughing!

It’s a con guys, leave it to rot on the shelf.

Tony Sykes by email