Shoppers vow to 'drive across town' to rival after Kroger's bag policy change - customers 'beg' for essential to return | The US Sun

KROGER customers are not happy with the grocer's shopping bags, calling out the chain online.

Many vented that the bags were missing an essential feature, which made the shopping experience much more difficult.

Kroger has ditched handles on some of its paper grocery bags, which has shoppers begging for change on platforms such as X.

One Chicago resident implored the grocer to bring back the handles for convenience purposes.

"Why do you now have paper bags with no handles?" asked the X user. "We are city people who walk to and from places. We need handles. Please and thank you."

Another customer pleaded with Kroger to reinstate the handles, claiming she no longer shopped there because of the bag policy.

"I’m begging you to bring back handles on your paper bags, I don’t want to have to drive across town to the other grocery store anymore," she wrote.

Others similarly expressed their frustration with the paper bags.

"What happened to the handles of the brown paper bag? You guys have the nicest brown bag and now took out the handles? Why?" said one Kroger customer.

"Seriously, now you’ve cut out handles on the bags?! How is one to carry and pull groceries home?" wrote another, sharing an image of their groceries in a handleless bag placed inside a grocery tote cart.

Kroger quickly responded to each customer, noting their complaints had been escalated to a leadership team.

Kroger customers on Reddit had mixed views on when the grocer eliminated handles on its paper bags.

A debate on the bags was sparked after one user noted the grocery bags at their local Fred Meyer - a chain owned by Kroger - no longer had handles.

“For something like the past year (maybe more), ALL paper bags they have had NO handles. Is this similar to Kroger locations?” they asked.

“How inept of a management team must Kroger have to f**k with their customers like this?”

Kroger customers then speculated as to when the handles were removed.

One shopper claimed the grocer has had bags without handles for decades.

“I can verify that Kroger paper bags have not had handles as far back as 1981. Before plastic bags, we used four different size paper bags depending on the size and shape of the items," they said.

Others remembered bags with handles were available temporarily until they were discontinued.

“We had handles on our Kroger paper bags from 2016 to about 2018. Then, they were discontinued,” said one shopper.

Several states have enforced strict rules against retailer handing out these bags to shoppers.

Source: World Economic Forum

Another user claiming to be a grocery relief assistant attributed the handleless bags to the chain's merchandise buyers.

“​​They come and go, it really depends on what the warehouse sends when they get ordered,” they wrote.

In related news, a Walmart customer left $300 in their cart and walked out over the retailer’s bag policy.

Plus, Kroger shoppers blasted the chain over its plastic bag design.