Pigs in blankets in place of lobster? The most frustrating supermarket substitutions of the year
An unexpected item turning up in one’s online grocery delivery can be troublesome enough at any time of year, but in December the stakes are much higher. One small replacement can send meticulously planned Christmas preparations totally awry – as customers are quick to point out.
According to data gathered by Pantry & Larder, complaints on X (formerly Twitter) about inappropriate grocery substitutions rose by 349 per cent in the week before Christmas 2022, and social media grumbles are expected to total more than double that this year.
Among some of the more disappointing swaps from supermarkets were pigs in blankets in place of lobster, Italian meatballs instead of stuffing and even French fries for orange juice.
So if you often find your meal plans scuppered by the arrival of an unexpected (and unwelcome) item, then you can at least seek solace in the fact this isn’t just a case of individual bad luck, but is rather now a substantiated trend.
“I ordered wrapping paper in my supermarket order recently,” says Telegraph senior feature writer Rosa Silverman. “It was substituted for a 10-pack of manilla envelopes. I can see what their workings out were: both are used to contain items we give or send to others. Both, as it happened, were brown. But the idea that I could insert my gifts into envelopes in lieu of paper seemed fanciful. Unless my gifts were really tiny, I suppose. And made of paper. And looked like, well, a letter.”
Unsuitable replacements can certainly impact on both our social and professional lives, as Telegraph recipe columnist Diana Henry has experienced. “Earlier this year I received half a leg of lamb when I needed a whole one for Sunday lunch, and subsequently had to schlep around to find a whole leg because friends were coming,” she recalls. “But because I am always testing recipes, the wrong substitution can be a disaster for my work schedule.” Pears in place of avocados, for example, simply won’t do the trick.
Often it’s our immediate culinary cravings that are thwarted by a sub-standard substitution: “I once had an order for golden syrup and it was substituted by lemon curd,” says Telegraph feature writer Jack Rear. “Both things can be served on pancakes, granted, but I was so looking forward to baking some flapjacks...”
While it’s easy to reason away certain swaps (a head of broccoli rather than stalks of Tenderstem won’t raise too many eyebrows, for example), others are just too ludicrous to stomach. One X user reported receiving a bottle of bleach instead of a four pack of beers, commenting that it “seems a bit harsh on my husband.”
Another customer who received, in place of Christmas crackers, a piece of wall art featuring a grumpy cat, quipped: “Well pulling crackers over Christmas dinner will be interesting.” Other swaps include a vegan salad as a substitute for chicken salad, and dairy and gluten products as a replacement for their free-from counterparts.
Telegraph puzzles editor Chris Lancaster once discovered the inside story of his litany of unsuitable supermarket swaps. “In place of a free-range chicken they delivered a magazine about model aircraft,” he recalls. “When questioned, the driver replied that ‘the students picking the online shops try to come up with the most unsuitable substitutions possible, as a game’”.
Such replacements can be turned away, of course, and are often communicated in advance, but with increasingly busy lives it’s not always possible to intervene. Not that substitutions are always all bad. When Telegraph restaurant critic William Sitwell included on his shopping list “a small wedge of Parmesan,” he was surprised to receive “half a roundel. ‘You like your pasta do you?’ the courier said as he heaved it into our kitchen.”
