Talk:Food Lion
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It should be noted that Food Lion is part of the European Delhaize food conglomerate. Googling for Delhaize will find you some Food Lion logos that say "Delhaize"
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[edit] Cleanup
We need to provide some meaningful information about Food Lion. Most of this information is about its conglomerates. Looking at this, I don't learn anything about the store. ςפקιДИτς 19:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC) This article reads like an ad, and does need cleaning up, and should also be tagged as a stub, due to small amounts of information. CS92
[edit] Primetime Live
I don't have time to research it and add sources and stuff just now (maybe later), but there's something very important missing from the Primetime Live segment: the only people caught performing unsanitary practices at the Food Lion store by the embedded journalists were also Primetime Live employees. That is, Primetime Live got employees hired at Food Lion, and then one Primetime Live employee did unhygienic things with meat (in violation of Food Lion policy and his training) while another planted employee taped him doing this with a hidden camera. When they aired the story, Primetime Live did NOT disclose that the person doing unhygienic things was a Primetime Live plant, not a regular Food Lion employee. Primetime Live argued that this journalistic technique was valid because Food Lion should have had procedures in place to prevent employees from doing anything inappropriate, and that a real employee could have done what their planted employee did, they just didn't actually catch one doing anything wrong.
NEW COMMENT: I do NOT believe the above to be true. In reading the brief from the case, there were 2 ABC producers and they were employed at Food Lion stores in 2 different states (one in North Carolina and one in South Carolina) So it would have been impossible for one ABC employee to record another one--as they were employed in 2 different stores. To read the brief of the case, go to: http://www.courses.psu.edu/comm/comm403_jsb15/foodlion.html
THE ABC PRIMETIME SECTION IS CLEARLY WRITTEN WITH A BIAS...and completely misrepresents the case against ABC and the facts of the PrimeTime situation; it sounds like propaganda from the company.
NEW COMMENT: I was a Food Lion Perishable Manager back in the 90's at the time of the Primetime Live expose and I can say from personal experience that the practices documented in the segment, while not officially condoned by Food Lion Management, were in fact being practiced by management at store level. I knew and worked with the Produce supervisor ( he was actually the VP of Produce Operations ) accused of digging out produce from the garbage and reselling it and I can tell you that its absolutely true that it was his practice to dig in the dumpsters behind the store looking for Produce he didn't believe should have been thrown away ( He did it to me several times ) Food Lion, much more than any other grocery store chain I worked for and can personally attest to, puts enormous pressure on its employees to maximize profit in its perishable departments ( Bakery, Deli, Dairy, Market,Produce ) While there is nothing wrong with that per se the problem comes from the fact that in order for Food Lion to bring in product at the cheapest price possible they end up buying grade B or C produce and short dated Dairy and Meat items and lean hard on employees to turn it with little or no shrinkage. This sets up the senario you see in the Primetime show where people are willing to use unsanitary means to extend the life of the product in the store ( Which is criminal in my opinion ). Everything is tied to lowering shrink and maximizing profit at Food lion, Raises, hours, etc. Ever wonder why the service is so bad at Food lion? Food lion uses ( Or at least did when I worked there ) a formula of Sales vs cost to calculate the amount of hours a store manager may use per week. This works pretty good for stores making good profits but it falls apart when the store isn't making its projected profits or there is a temporary escalation in sales ( holidays for instance ) resulting in long checkout lines and no employees working the perishable departments.
So bottom line is that the Primetime show was not propaganda at all, but an honest look at how greedy some companies are ( And Food Lion is not the only company doing these kinds of things, then or now ) and how, again while not condoning it certainly turning a blind eye to these practices, a company will put profits over the well being of its customers. This is why Food Lion did not sue for Defamation but instead sued for Fraud and breach of contract. Believe me if they could have proven Defamation they would have sued for it.
[edit] Origin of Name
I was under the impression that the name was changed to Food Lion after Delhaize bought the company. I'll dig a little more to see if I can verify that. Mishmash8
Food lion was Food Town in the beggining, and once bought by Delhaize, converted to Food Lion.
NEW COMMENT: This is indeed what really happened. The information is all on this page [1]. Kickee
[edit] A first person view of Food Lion practices
I work at a Food Lion deli in Maryland. I'm not putting it on the page, because that would violate the "no original research" ban, but I will put it here as a side not.
No establishment with any sense would sell a mouldy product. Nobody would ever eat there again, and the news would quickly spread. We date our foods just like any other resturant.
The slicer is taken apart and cleaned once a day. It's whiped down throughout the day.
The chicken however, is cooked once in the morning and left in the hot bar for the entire day. We're supposed to throw them out after four hours. At the end of the day, the chicken is put in the fridge to be resold as cold chicken.
In the break room, there is an email memo from Food Lion corporate. They issued an official comment about the ABC thing. I believe the gist of it was that what was shown on tv was an isolated incident.
There's nothing really that bad about Food Lion's hygeine. The problem is the stiff corporate atmosphere of the place. Training consists of watching a slideshow that is unnessesarily long and repetative. It was an extremely ineffective and quite boring ordeal. They come up with little slogans that they throw everywhere that do not help anything at all. They put me in the deli two days with someone else, then put me by myself. There was very little training and I was mostly left to fend for myself.
NEW COMMENT: I was a Food Lion Perishable Manager back in the 90's at the time of the Primetime Live expose and I can say from personal experience that the practices documented in the segment, while not officially condoned by Food Lion Management, were in fact being practiced by management at store level. I knew and worked with the Produce supervisor ( he was actually the VP of Produce Operations ) accused of digging out produce from the garbage and reselling it and I can tell you that its absolutely true that it was his practice to dig in the dumpsters behind the store looking for Produce he didn't believe should have been thrown away ( He did it to me several times ) Food Lion, much more than any other grocery store chain I worked for and can personally attest to, puts enormous pressure on its employees to maximize profit in its perishable departments ( Bakery, Deli, Dairy, Market,Produce ) While there is nothing wrong with that per se the problem comes from the fact that in order for Food Lion to bring in product at the cheapest price possible they end up buying grade B or C produce and short dated Dairy and Meat items and lean hard on employees to turn it with little or no shrinkage. This sets up the senario you see in the Primetime show where people are willing to use unsanitary means to extend the life of the product in the store ( Which is criminal in my opinion ). Everything is tied to lowering shrink and maximizing profit at Food lion, Raises, hours, etc. Ever wonder why the service is so bad at Food lion? Food lion uses ( Or at least did when I worked there ) a formula of Sales vs cost to calculate the amount of hours a store manager may use per week. This works pretty good for stores making good profits but it falls apart when the store isn't making its projected profits or there is a temporary escalation in sales ( holidays for instance ) resulting in long checkout lines and no employees working the perishable departments.
So bottom line is that the Primetime show was not propaganda at all, but an honest look at how greedy some companies are ( And Food Lion is not the only company doing these kinds of things, then or now ) and how, again while not condoning it certainly turning a blind eye to these practices, a company will put profits over the well being of its customers. This is why Food Lion did not sue for Defamation but instead sued for Fraud and breach of contract. Believe me if they could have proven Defamation they would have sued for it.
[edit] Bottom Dollar Section
It looks like the text in the bottom dollar section is an exact cut/paste from here http://couponing.about.com/b/a/211269.htm
[edit] PRIMETIME LIED!
I've read several accounts of people (mostly layers) who watched the whole un-edited footage (subpoenaed from ABC) of the Food Lion segment.
The ABC segment has been criticized by many sources for being slanderous and dishonest. One part of the segment shows a woman (an ABC producer with a hidden camera) carrying a tray of moldy meat and walking over to the manager and saying "We're not really gonna sell this are we?" Implying that they were going to sell it. The actual, un-edited footage shows that the manager said right after that, "no we're not gonna sell it. That's why it's back here."
The ABC segment is filled with dishonest manipulative editing.
This portion of the article is very biased against the Food Lion.
- If that was really the case, than a libel charge would have been a part of the lawsuit. I don't know anything about Delhaize, but I'v eyet to see a conglomerate that wouldn't file a libel suit in retaliation to information that makes them look bad, even when the information was true. Do I think they told the whole story? No. But the lack of a libel suit shows me that it wasn't all bs on ABC's part. 68.229.226.66 02:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
A lot of Food Lion's woes may be linked to Union. Food Lion is one of the few grocery chains that are not part of the Union. A lot of conspiracy theories have popped up about if the Union cannot come in we will try and shut you down type of mentality. Of course, none of this can be proven but was curious if anybody esle had heard this.
lol who cares. it's a damn supermarket.
NEW COMMENT: I was a Food Lion Perishable Manager back in the 90's at the time of the Primetime Live expose and I can say from personal experience that the practices documented in the segment, while not officially condoned by Food Lion Management, were in fact being practiced by management at store level. I knew and worked with the Produce supervisor ( he was actually the VP of Produce Operations ) accused of digging out produce from the garbage and reselling it and I can tell you that its absolutely true that it was his practice to dig in the dumpsters behind the store looking for Produce he didn't believe should have been thrown away ( He did it to me several times ) Food Lion, much more than any other grocery store chain I worked for and can personally attest to, puts enormous pressure on its employees to maximize profit in its perishable departments ( Bakery, Deli, Dairy, Market,Produce ) While there is nothing wrong with that per se the problem comes from the fact that in order for Food Lion to bring in product at the cheapest price possible they end up buying grade B or C produce and short dated Dairy and Meat items and lean hard on employees to turn it with little or no shrinkage. This sets up the senario you see in the Primetime show where people are willing to use unsanitary means to extend the life of the product in the store ( Which is criminal in my opinion ). Everything is tied to lowering shrink and maximizing profit at Food lion, Raises, hours, etc. Ever wonder why the service is so bad at Food lion? Food lion uses ( Or at least did when I worked there ) a formula of Sales vs cost to calculate the amount of hours a store manager may use per week. This works pretty good for stores making good profits but it falls apart when the store isn't making its projected profits or there is a temporary escalation in sales ( holidays for instance ) resulting in long checkout lines and no employees working the perishable departments.
So bottom line is that the Primetime show was not propaganda at all, but an honest look at how greedy some companies are ( And Food Lion is not the only company doing these kinds of things, then or now ) and how, again while not condoning it certainly turning a blind eye to these practices, a company will put profits over the well being of its customers. This is why Food Lion did not sue for Defamation but instead sued for Fraud and breach of contract. Believe me if they could have proven Defamation they would have sued for it.
[edit] Clean Up
I have been working for the last couple of days now working to clean up and improve the Food Lion article, long with with those of sister chains Sweetbay, Hannaford, and Harveys. However my information about the chains is some what limited. While the Delhaize Website (http://www.delhaize.com) is a good source, it would be nice if anyone else with more information about the chains would come forward.
- Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MortalConviction (talk • contribs) 17:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC).
[edit] Bad Article; Bad Talk Page
Just tried to clean up a few of the many examples of POV, citation-needed's, no-source, etc. -- as well as poor writing and style. I finally realized I have a day job. This article is a mess -- and a great example of what a Wikipedia entry should NOT be.
Now — I personally suspect that virtually all of the entry is "true"(!)
However, THAT IS NOT WHAT'S IMPORTANT. (It's necessary, but far from sufficient.) The entry does not sound objective - it sounds quite biased. It makes numerous factual claims/statements without citing external sources. (I also suspect that much of it was, in fact, copied pretty much verbatim from external sources without attribution).
Finally - the talk page is probably not the place to put "hey, I worked at Food Lion (or anywhere else) and here's what went on at our store in East Podunk". (In fact, there's probably not any place on Wikipedia for that. Write a blog - everybody else is doing it. If the article contains bad information, your personal anecdotes — what happened to you, that one time? in August of 1994? at Band Camp?... — still don't prove or disprove anything.) A Doon 19:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
