Supermarket deliveries: worst supermarket for substitutions, your rights to a refund

Some stores really struggle to deliver all of the items you’ve ordered, and can come up with some outright bizarre substitutions.

As someone who has relied on click and collect and delivery services from supermarkets over the last couple of years, I’ve had a fair bit of experience with substitutions.

To be fair, there are occasions when they work out well.

You can’t really be too disappointed when rather than a packet of 20 pigs in blankets you instead get two packets of 12 pigs in blankets each, for example.

Or, as a lover of biltong, I don’t grumble when my local Tesco are all out and so replace a packet with some beef jerky.

There are times when it’s far more frustrating though. My wife was baking a birthday cake earlier this year and ordered icing of a specific colour, only for a completely different colour to be delivered. 

We have also had occasions where a substitution has left us with insufficient food ‒ a packet of steak being replaced with a smaller packet, which simply wouldn’t stretch across a house of four.

Yet a new study has highlighted that some shoppers have been on the receiving end of far more bizarre substitutions, as well as the supermarkets most likely to chop and change what you actually receive.

I didn’t order this

Consumer champions Which? polled its members on their experiences of substitutions from their online grocery orders, and found that having something turn up that you didn’t actually request is a pretty common occurrence.

In fact, around two in five shoppers had a substitution in their most recent supermarket order.

So which stores have the most trouble when it comes to changing orders?

The study found that just shy of half (49%) of Aldi shoppers have had substitutions in their most recent shop, with some changes utterly mindboggling.

One Aldi shopper ended up with Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream instead of breaded fish fillets, while another ordered milk and instead received cooking oil.

A similar proportion of Sainsbury’s shoppers (48%) have seen substitutions in their latest shop, with bizarre changes including getting beef stock instead of brandy butter, while 45% of Asda shoppers have received replacement items.

One Asda shopper ordered toilet rolls but instead received sausage rolls.

Around four in 10 (43%) of Morrisons shoppers had substitutions in their latest order, dropping to 41% of Ocado users and 39% of Tesco shoppers.

With the latter, one shopper received duck paste instead of duct tape, which is clearly a pretty funny mistake.

The most impressive at getting it right was Iceland, where just 18% of shoppers received a substitute item.

When substitutions are a serious business

Now some of the examples picked out by Which? will make many of us smile ‒ the Waitrose shopper who tampons instead of shaving cream for example ‒ but there can be serious consequences.

An Iceland shopper gave their grandchild what they thought was a cheese biscuit, but which turned out to be a chilli alternative.

There will be times when shoppers don’t realise an item has been substituted and carry on as normal, but if they or their loved ones have food intolerances or allergies, it can lead to issues.

There were shoppers who told Which? that their gluten-free orders had been replaced with regular options, for example.

Going gluten-free is not just a lifestyle choice, for some people, it’s a health necessity, so having an inappropriate food substitution could result in harm.

Supermarket substitutions: your options

Clearly, it’s really important that you pay close attention when picking up your shopping or going through your delivery, to ensure that any substitutions are appropriate.

You aren’t required to keep them ‒ if the supermarket has sent something that you don’t want, you can hand it back to the delivery driver and get a refund. Keep an eye on your bank balance to make sure that any refunds do in fact go through.

What’s more, you can opt out of substitutions altogether.

When putting your order through online, there will be a tickbox asking if you’re happy to have replacement items in your delivery should the requested items not be available.

Of course, this may mean that you need to make a separate trip to the shops to pick up the missing items, but if your local store is the sort to stick in a bar of mayonnaise instead of a bar of soap, then that may be a price worth paying.