Supervalu, Also Owns Albertson's, SHOP N SAVE, Save-a-lot, Shaw's, Acme, Shoppers And Cub's Foods, Biggs Bad/illegal ethics toward vendors and truckers, surely consumers cannot trust this corportation either. Nationwide Missouri

This complaint is to warn consumers against shopping at stores owned by SUPERVALU, which owns and operates under many names, including but not limited to Albertson's, SHOP N SAVE, Save-a-lot, Shaw's, Acme, Shoppers and Cub's Foods, Biggs. I will tell you of my own personal experience, and then tell you about lawsuits against SUPERVALU. Then, as a consumer, I ask you to think hard about where you want to do your shopping.

I arrived for an appointment to deliver 3 pallets of canned chilli to their Hazelwood, MO warehouse. The receiver told me I would have to pay their in-house lumpers (unloading laborers) $125 to unload me, or I would have to do it myself and restack the chilli onto many pallets before the cargo would be accepted. I told the receiver that this came as a total suprise to me, but I would phone my office to see about approval, as the carrier I was driving for required that if I am going to pay or get paid for unloading that it is approved first.

My dispatcher said this was a surprise to him also, and that he would call the shipper to see if they wanted to pay for the unload or pay for us to ship the cargo back to them. While that 3rd call was in progress, the receiver came to me and appeared to be flushed in a rage and humiliated me with his rage as he shouted angrily at me that I had to take action immediately or get my truck off the dock because he wouldn't wait for the phone calls. I had no approval yet, not enough time, so I pulled the truck off the dock.

When I got approval a little later that the shipper would reimburse us the $125 (and add this to their law suit over similar incidents). But the receiver said I had forfeited my appointment and would have to make another appointment, maybe they could squeeze me in the next day.

So I laid over until the next morning, waited for my appointmnt, and paid the $125 and in about 30 minutes 2 men had done the job and I was on my way.

My dispatcher told me a driver had unloaded himself of a few pallets of chilli at another SUPERVALU location in another state but did not restack it to smaller stacks on many other pallets, so SUPERVALU was charging the shipper an outrageous amount for storage on the cargo until someone would come and restack to shorter stacks (the chilli is shipped in stacks short enough to fit the warehouse shelves, so the reason for shorter stacks is unkown to me). The shipper had retained an attorney over this and the other incidents and was going to court.

Later I learned that a lot of truckers and carriers had joined together for a class action suit against SUPERVALU for forcing carriers to pay for unloading, and after the lawsuit was filed SUPERVALU changed it's policy, but they still are not reasonable. If you google "SUPERVALU lawsuit groceries" you will find other lawsuits that have been brought by many others.

After 14 years as a truck driver, I am of the opinion that SUPERVALU is the worst of the worst, and I even believe they could accurately be deemed as evil. Please, if there is a God in heaven, let him guide your heart to a more ethical grocery provider.

Folks, we are all in this world together, so let's all join in not patronizing SUPERVALU and it's acquistions. This is difficult because they operate under so many different names, but let's do the best we can.

Click here to see a listing of most of the various names SUPERVALU operates under http://www.supervalu.com/sv-webapp/

Get info on the trucking companies class action lawuit at http://www.ooida.com/legal_action/Supervalu/supervalu_index.html

Ben
Union, Oregon
U.S.A.