A Walmart shopper is frustrated that her pickup orders keep having moldy and expired food in them. And the problem appears to go beyond just her.
In a viral video with more than 300,000 views, Leigh (@leighhhanna) explains that she’s been getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of quality and food safety at her local Walmart.
She usually places pickup orders for her groceries, but it’s been problem after problem.
Three weeks ago, she had to return moldy blueberries. Last week, it was freezer-burnt pizza, and this week, half of her chicken is raw.
Walmart’s grocery quality
Getting food like this can lead to bacteria-based illnesses like salmonella, e. coli, and listeria. At their mildest, getting sick from one of these food-based diseases can lead to stomach discomfort, but at worst, a person could require hospitalization.
And why does this happen? It could be a host of things, from lack of inventory management, not properly monitoring foos, cost-cutting measures, or lack of staff training on food safety.
“And they make me bring the food back in every time. Grocery pickup getting to be a headache,” Leigh said.
While some people in the comment section criticized her for continuing to go back to Walmart when she keeps having these bad experiences, Leigh said it’s not so simple.
“I’m glad that you have endless options [but] around here, around these parts, we have Walmart. You can drive forever to go to Sam’s Club. We don’t have time for that,” Leigh said.
Leigh added that while they have a Food Lion nearby, once they added everything to the cart, it was an “insane amount more” than what it would cost them at Walmart.
Food deserts and low quality groceries
What Leigh is describing is a food desert (also known as food apartheid and food oppression). This is an area in which grocery stores with affordable and healthy food options aren’t easily accessible, especially for those without a car. They tend to be most common in Black and brown communities and low-income areas.
Unfortunately, studies have found that these food issues—from rotten produce to food deserts—tend to clearly exist on race and wealth lines, Business Insider reported. Grocers discriminate against low-income and BIPOC communities that have limited grocery store options.
“Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets as poor ones do, that white neighborhoods contain an average of four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black ones do, and that grocery stores in African-American communities are usually smaller with less selection,” the Food Empowerment Project reported.
To further highlight this issue, several years back in Detroit, the majority Black city had systemically bad food at the local grocery store. Business Insider reported that 18% of produce was rotten, 38% of food was expired, and 22% of meat was expired. Plus, some grocers were generally unclean and had mold issues.
Residents who couldn’t afford to go elsewhere were forced to deal with the substandard food offered while others purchased their groceries outside of the city, leading to lost city revenue.
@leighhhanna I’M COMIN TO DA EDGE #fyp #walmart #grocerypickup #moldy #raw ♬ original sound – Richer
Returning poor quality food to Walmart
In its return policy, Walmart states that just about anything that you buy from them can be returned, and that seems to include food items too, especially if they’re damaged or defective. It’s recommended that you bring in your receipt for the return.
And it seems most grocers have similar policies, at least when it comes to food items.
People in Leigh’s comments section had a lot to say.
“This is exactly why I had to just stop doing pick ups because something is always either moldy or spoiled,” a person shared.
“This is why I have to go in myself bc how you gunna pick the oldest moldiest grapes you’ve ever seen,” another said.
“I got stuff delivered that was warm. I did the live chat and they said I had to bring it in, I was like doesn’t that defeat the purpose of me getting it delivered?! So I called and they refunded,” a commenter wrote.
The Daily Dot reached out to Leigh via TikTok comment and direct message.
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