Disclosure: This is a sponsored compensated post brought to you by Shaw’s Supermarket. All opinions expressed in this post are 100% my own, as are any photos.
Many of you may not know this about me but I’m a bit of a germaphobe.
Okay, I’m a HUGE germaphobe.
Germs…bacteria…anything that can make you sick makes me cringe.
I never used to be as bad as I am now. Sure, when I had kids I was like any mom nowadays and a bit fanatical about allowing anyone to hold my children without first using hand sanitizer. But outside of that, I was normal. Or as normal as I can personally be.
Heck, as a young kid and teen, I couldn’t care less about cleanliness. And my bedroom showed it. I was a slob!
And I’m sure my mother wishes that back then I was the way I am now.
The change in me took place when I began working at a pizza dough production company in Maine helping to develop a lot of their HACCP-based program. I did a lot of research on food contamination caused by biological, chemical and physical hazards that could harm consumers. Because of that work, I started looking at places, like stores, restaurants and even people’s homes, differently.
One of the types of places that I pay a lot of attention to is grocery stores because there is a lot of room for contamination if the correct measures aren’t taken to store food in the proper conditions in order to protect it from biological, chemical and physical hazards.
I’ve gone into some extremely dirty stores that really turn me off and make me not want to shop there.
Product spills weren’t cleaned up as soon as they occurred. Dirt was visible everywhere, including on the shelves, and freezers and coolers didn’t work properly.
And what about what you can’t see?
Maybe there isn’t bacteria or germs everywhere, but if the store looks dirty you can bet my mind is going to go there.
The last thing I want is to get sick or have my family get sick. Our health, safety and overall well-being is of the utmost importance to me.
Whenever I walk into our local Shaw’s Supermarkets I am never greeted by dirty floors or shelves and the coolers and freezers all appear in proper working order.
Of course, it still doesn’t stop me from grossing out over raw chicken. I have a huge disgust for it when it’s raw. I love to eat chicken but touching it and preparing it when raw grosses me out. I do it, but I have to wash everything that comes in contact with the chicken right after use because I’m afraid of bacteria buildup. In my head I can see the bacteria swirling around and laughing at me as they try to make me sick. (That’s my active author imagination taking over.)
And I’m the same with seafood.
Back to my point, though. Because Shaw’s takes pride in their appearance of their stores, it helps me to feel at ease when I’m there. I don’t get all skeeved out and feel the need to douse myself with hand sanitizer…and I can’t say that for all stores. There are certainly ones near where I live that make my skin crawl.
But Shaw’s Supermarket is not one of those stores. I can walk into the ones near us at any given time and feel safe. And that makes me happy.
(And right now at Shaw’s there is a #HugeSale going on filled with lots of great deals. The other day I even compiled a list of potential meals one can make based on sale items.)