Shoppers who purchase their groceries online are likely to receive food products that are less fresh than groceries bought in-store, a new survey into Britain’s leading supermarket chains has revealed.
The survey, carried out by Which? Magazine, showed that roughly half of the supermarket shoppers questioned believed use-by dates were shorter on groceries bought online than if they had been picked up in the shop.
The consumer magazine’s researchers visited Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose stores and bought ten fresh, non-organic products, such as plums, carrots, potatoes and salad.
They also booked online deliveries from the same supermarkets, and from Ocado, which delivers Waitrose products, to arrive on the same day as the shop visits.
They found sell-by dates, on average, were a day later on items bought in store. For example, one loaf of bread bought in store was found to have a sell-by date eight days later than the online delivery .
Which? has not released a full breakdown of its research, but says no supermarket performed worse than any other overall.
A Which? spokesman commented: “Online shopping might save you from traipsing round a busy supermarket but you may need to eat your food sooner than if you shop in the store.”
All the supermarkets involved in the survey, along with delivery firm Ocado, said they were committed to providing online consumers with the freshest produce, with the exception of Asda which branded the findings as “nonsense”.
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