Food quality - Stale food

There are 19 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 406 times. The latest Post (May 21, 2026 at 5:49 PM) was by serafina.

    I was recently discussing with my husband stale food in bakeries. There is a nice place that recently opened on the corner of Av. Scalabrini and Av. Córdoba. Very polished, well decorated, large selection of savory and sweets, cakes, pastries etc.

    On weekends, they do "viennoiserie" and "laminados". This would be the layered pastries that have been in fashion since recently in Buenos Aires. The cinnamon roll, NY -style (with glazed sugar and butter) costs about $4500 pesos (3 USD), which is about 3.5x a medialuna. Fair enough. However, the same rolls stay for sale for days. They only bake them once per week, usually on Saturday or Sunday, and today (Thursday) they were still there.

    In the past, I made the mistake of buying one during weekdays and I could tell it was stale. Which means it was edible but not fresh. I am kinda pissed at the fact that stale or fresh, it always costs $4500 and they do not disclose how old it is.

    In Italy, all baked food is fresh. Everything that is unsold at the end of the day, is taken away and donated or recycled. While it seems a waste of food (I'd be happier if they sold it at a discounted price), it also ensure a food quality across the week. Is it the same in your home country?

    On my way back from the bakery, I stopped at the El Puente supermarket where they sell sliced hams. They have 2-3 brands of ham, turkey, and other ham-look-alike. The first sliced package of ham was almost greyish. The preparation date was yesterday, May 13. However, the other packages behind were bright pink and also with the same preparation date. It seemed blatant that they simply applied a new sticker on the old slices and put it on front to sell it first. Besides the health concern (which supermarkets here doesn't share with the rest of the world), I find it also a poor marketing/affiliation strategy. Do they think that the customers do not see/care?


    A Day in the Life of a Viennoiserie - Good Husband Patisserie

    A small bakery where we liked the sourdough pizza crusts always sold delicious pastries as well. But I noticed that, while they sold their breads at greatly reduced prices the day after they were baked, the pastries always remained full price. Surely the customers could tell the difference between fresh and day-old pastries?

    Another small bakery near us made delicious chipás. Most days, they were priced by the kilo, but sometimes they sold small bags of them at a ridiculously low price. Presumably to get rid of the ones that weren’t freshly baked. Yet there was never an explanation.

    Most of the bakeries I go to have a good turnover of food. The chpás always disappear and I've yet to acquire stale food.

    Quote from UK Man

    I've noticed a decline in fresh food quality here over the last 25 years....most of what you get now is overpriced shit.

    I completely disagree because I've seen a huge improvement in choice and quality over 20 years. It may be overpriced, but it's not shit.

    I agree with Splinter . Over the same 20 years, we experienced an overall improvement of both selection and quality of food. The obvious contradiction to the rule, sadly, has been beef: as the prices have increased, the quality has markedly declined, as grass-fed beef has all but disappeared.

    It may be that out in the middle of Argentina, novelty ingredients do not arrive or do not have a big demand. When we spent the summer in Mar del Plata, the food choice seemed limited compared to the city of Buenos Aires.

    I have observed the day old bread for sale in a couple of places. Even old facturas… that get sold out. However, it is only one place and I don’t see why other places don’t follow suit. I understand you can’t make four cinnamon rolls a day as it is not worth it. But they could at least lower the price in the following days.

    This reminds me of another bakery, far more modest, where I commissioned a strawberry cake for my birthday, a few years ago. They gave me the same one that was on display the day I ordered it; three days before. Never again.

    Quote from Splinter

    I completely disagree because I've seen a huge improvement in choice and quality over 20 years. It may be overpriced, but it's not shit.

    Even the missus agrees the quality and variety here has gone downhill over the years and is well behind the likes of Spain and the UK. I wouldn't say we're that fussy either.

    Quote from serafina

    It may be that out in the middle of Argentina, novelty ingredients do not arrive or do not have a big demand. When we spent the summer in Mar del Plata, the food choice seemed limited compared to the city of Buenos Aires.

    Exactly and it's not as if we're that far away from the capital.

    Edited once, last by UK Man: Merged a post created by UK Man into this post. (May 14, 2026 at 2:04 PM).

    I can't say for the UK, specifically, but I'd imagine it is the same as in Italy. Supermarkets do have high quality food from smaller brands. For example, cheeses, marmalades, biscuits, pasta, soaps, beverages from local or mid-size companies.

    Here, at the supermarket you can't find anything that is smaller than a National-wide brand (La Serenissima). You will never find a locally produced cheese or milk, though. It also seems there is zero marketing related to the territory and typical/specialty products, except maybe jams made with berries from Patagonia.

    In Italy, and I would assume in the rest of central Europe, you always see cheeses advertised based on their place of origin (this valley or that city or region, or at least a country if it is imported).

    Today is 15% off at the Carrefour, and my grocery list is so long that Id have to visit 4-5 places to buy everything, as the supermarket doesn't have that assortment/quality/price. In Italy, going to the supermarket really solved your shopping needs. Here it is just for certain heavily industrial food that is cheaper because of card discounts or special offers.

    Even tofu is rarely found in supermarkets. You have to go to a bigger store like a large Disco. I don't think that Coto or Carrefour sell tofu, at all.

    Quote from serafina

    Here, at the supermarket you can't find anything that is smaller than a National-wide brand (La Serenissima). You will never find a locally produced cheese or milk, though. It also seems there is zero marketing related to the territory and typical/specialty products, except maybe jams made with berries from Patagonia.

    I was surprised to find Disco close to the apartment in BA had a decent selection of cheese produced in the Province. La Suerte is especially good.

    Tienda Online de Quesos La Suerte
    Comprá productos de Quesos La Suerte por internet. Tenemos quesos, boxes selección y más. Hacé tu pedido y pagalo online.
    www.quesoslasuerte.com.ar
    Quote from serafina

    I was recently discussing with my husband stale food in bakeries.

    Every bakery I ever knew when in was young would make bread and rolls every day. They would send large boxes to their client cafes and sandwich shops very early each morning. If it was a pastry shop the same type of thing, but more important you would see customers lined up everyday. If you do not see workers arriving to the bakery at 3-5am with the smell of the breads cooking with open back doors to cool the kitchen, then it is not worth visiting.

    If the place also seconds as a cafe with table and coffee service it is probably not a reliable bakery. I do not visit bakeries here in Argentina often, but other day I did duck into a random place hoping for a quick coffee, but was told they do not do that. So i noted that as a reminder to go there in future if I need baked goods.

    We have a bakery shop just around the corner from us where they bake all their goods in wood fired ovens. I regularly see a large pile of wood delivered outside so know they still use it.

    I'm not a great lover of Argentine style pastries to be honest so rarely bother buy anything from there.

    Quote from serafina

    In Italy, and I would assume in the rest of central Europe, you always see cheeses advertised based on their place of origin (this valley or that city or region, or at least a country if it is imported).

    That is the US experience too that I miss here in Argentina. There I am used to a cheese counter with 20-30 or more different small producers who highlight the place of origin similar to how you explain. Here, if lucky, there is now 3-5 "small" producers who sell in the big markets, so better than things were 10 years ago.

    It is even worse here for meat, fruits and vegetables. All those things are just commodities that no one tries to market with unique attributes. In US supermarkets there are always at least 2-3 different of the same fruit or vegetable, e.g. one highlighted as local from so-n-so valley and organic, one organic from some other state or country, and one just cheaper generic non-organic. At the butcher counter every meat highlights a local or distant small farm. Of course there is still the big name brand suppliers for cheaper prices.

    Quote from serafina

    Even tofu is rarely found in supermarkets. You have to go to a bigger store like a large Disco. I don't think that Coto or Carrefour sell tofu, at all.

    I have been buying the same brand of Tofu from Coto every few weeks for the past year or more.

    La Proveeduría, the only decent supermarket in Carilo is probably the cleanest, tidiest and best presented supermarket I've ever walked into in Argentina. It was absolutely spotless.

    Mind you, we were the only customers and what a pleasure it was to roam around decently wide aisles without bumping into other people.

    Very nice.

    Lack of space to move around freely is my biggest bugbear with the supermarkets we have here. If it's not people it's stacks of products blocking half the aisle. When Carrefour opened it had loads of free space but now you even have to ask staff filling the shelves to move and let you through. They seem to expect you to go out of your way to get something. :cursing:

    Quote from Splinter

    La Proveeduría, the only decent supermarket in Carilo is probably the cleanest, tidiest and best presented supermarket I've ever walked into in Argentina. It was absolutely spotless.

    Mind you, we were the only customers and what a pleasure it was to roam around decently wide aisles without bumping into other people.

    Yes , la Proveeduria is a great place to shop.

    Did you try the huge Coto up on the main road?

    Actually, we stopped at that Coto on R11 and it's massive. It's also in the middle of nowhere, but being between several holiday towns, I can see why they put it there. Yesterday we were two out of only about a dozen people in the store which felt weird.

    Mar de las Pampas was nice, albeit with most shops and eateries closed, but I still prefer Carilo.

    Quote from Splinter

    La Proveeduría, the only decent supermarket in Carilo is probably the cleanest, tidiest and best presented supermarket I've ever walked into in Argentina. It was absolutely spotless.

    Has this brand new topic thread already been hijacked by talk of supermarkets?

    I remember reading about that supermarket a few years ago. Apparently, it was (is?) the only supermarket in Cariló. In 2012 it was burned down completely, in 2018 it was the target of an odd robbery.

    I liked the small coastal towns when I visited, and even dreamt of buying a property there. However, even if it is on the busy road from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata, it seems it can be no one's territory.... occupied homes, robberies, arsons. I'll pass.

    In any case, if we want to back on topic, I find it curious that the hygiene standards in supermarkets here do not impact sales. Most chinos have a weird stagnant water smell, or cat pee smell, or weird buckets in the aisles (this applies to larger supermarkets, too). I remember the pigeons flying in the larger Carrefour supermarkets on Av. Libertador.