Sussex Asda customer 'throws fish at teen' to stop them getting his reduced food bargains
Chloe Stanbridge said that over the last eight months, she has noticed customers getting increasingly aggressive at the Asda Ferring superstore in Littlehampton Road, Ferring, West Sussex, when it comes to snapping up the reductions.
She said the fish-flinger, who she thought was in his 70s, 'follows the trolley of reduced food from the door where it comes out' and 'takes all the food before anyone else can see it'.
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Hide AdHe also pushed a trolley into a teenage boy to stop him getting at the bargains, she claimed.
She wanted to raise awareness of what she had seen so that customers would be more respectful.
"It's disgusting and petty"
She said: "I think it’s disgusting how people have to fight each other for reduced food.
"I am not against people buying reduced food; sometimes people have not a lot of money and so they have to resort to buying that food, but I think it’s disgusting and petty that they have to fight over a bit of reduced meat or fruit and turn to violence to be the one with the most food at the end."
Grapes of wrath
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Hide AdChloe had also experienced a catalogue of reduction run-ins herself - including two incidents involving grapes.
She claimed someone trapped her arm between two boxes when she reached for the cut-price fruit, and a woman pinched her hands so she would let go of the two packs she was holding - despite the pincher already cradling five or six packs herself.
A clucky escape
Most recently, in February, Chloe said she became embroiled in an argument over a discounted chicken.
She said: "I was walking down the fridge section and the lady was doing reduced food so I decided to have a look at what was there.
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Hide Ad"I couldn’t reach the chicken at the top, so she passed it to me and another lady said that the lady doing the reduced food had snatched it from her hand - which she had not.
"The lady who said that the chicken had been snatched from her then shouted at me, saying that I had to give her the chicken or she would get me banned for life from Asda."
Supermarket sweep
The Asda shopper claimed there were some regular culprits. She said one female customer would hoard all the bargains in her trolley, walk away, and then put back what they did not want later, and a husband-and-wife team would do their own version of supermarket sweep.
She said: "They both stand by the fruit, grab a trolley full of that, and then go and get as much meat as they can, and then do the same for the cake section so they end up with two or three trolleys of reduced food."
Peppa Pig snatch
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Hide AdAs well as people elbowing each other out of the way and taking food out of other people's trolleys, she said: "People stand in your way so you can’t get to the baskets of food.
"You ask nicely could they move so you have a look, but they just ignore you and take all the food."
She also claimed others had experienced similar problems. She said: "One lady said that her daughter picked up some Peppa Pig cakes, and a lady came along and snatched it out of her kids' hands and she said her daughter was only three at the time."
Asda responds
An Asda spokesman has responded to Chloe's claims.
They said: "Whilst it’s entirely true we offer great deals to our customers, we have not received any complaints about behaviour of this kind in our Ferring store and we trust that of our customers will always treat each other with respect."