Is It Rude To Snack While Grocery Shopping? Supermarket Employees Have Thoughts.

Think twice before you devour that handful of grapes in the store. In some cases, it isn't even legal.

Nutrition experts caution against grocery shopping when you’re hungry, but that advice relates to making healthy food choices. It has little to do with a different, more polarizing issue: snacking in the supermarket.

As some people wander the aisles, they might grab a small bag of pretzels and start munching. Or maybe they eat a handful or two of grapes, just to “test the ripeness,” of course. Some do it, and others find it unfathomable.

But as long as you intend to pay for the food, snacking while grocery shopping is no biggie, right? Well, it depends on who you ask.

Shoppers on X (formerly known as Twitter) find the common practice “wildly irritating” and, based on their use of an “Abbott Elementary” meme, cringe-inducing as well. Under a video that shows TikToker @cecilybauchmann handing a cashier an empty food container after eating in a store, commenters are divided. Some say it is “embarrassing” and “feels so illegal,” while others believe that it’s no problem if you eventually pay for them.

But grocery store employees themselves are here to provide clarity on the practice. I’Talia McCarthy, the general manager of Dill Pickle Food Co-Op in Chicago, has worked in grocery stores since 2007. She says it’s acceptable to munch on nonweighted items (like a carton of Goldfish or a box of cookies) if you pay for them before you leave. That means you generally won’t get flak for cracking open a bottle of pop and enjoying it as you stroll through the bread aisle, she said. However, foods that interfere with other shoppers’ experience, such as those with strong smells or those that create a sticky, crumby mess for employees to deal with later, shouldn’t be consumed in the store, she added.