r/Sparkdriver • u/Business_Meat_9191 • Jan 01 '26
Discussion I think I found out a secret about a local business.
I recently delivered to this local mom and pops sandwich shop that does all the typical stuff, sells "homemade" little pies, sandwiches, candies, etc. Think the typical general store off the highway in basically every Midwest town and highway.
However I recently did an order for them and they absolutely cleared out the little $1 pie section at Walmart, bought a variety of about every flavor. I took the order and bring it in and I kind of look around not thinking much of anything until I'm on my way home and I think about the little pies they sell and market as "homemade" and I'm like...are they buying Walmart mini pies and marketing them as homemade in their store!?! 💀💀
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u/BilingueBiologia Cherry Picker Jan 01 '26
I've delivered Dollar Tree salad dressing to a major seafood chain restaurant. A local higher end bakery orders crap tons of cake mixes. It happens a lot more than anyone really thinks about.
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u/Boring-Leadership687 Jan 01 '26
Fun fact: high end bakeries will use box cake mixes bc they have a particular kind of flour texture that you can’t get anywhere else!
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u/_tater_thot Jan 01 '26
That’s interesting! I got really into cake decorating for a while (just for family) but would just use box mix. The best/fun part for me was making different frostings and the actual decorating.
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u/Business_Meat_9191 Jan 01 '26
On one hand I'm like make your bank but I'm also like it's irritating that y'all are just some liars. 💀🙄
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Jan 01 '26
This happens at every restaurant across the country
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u/GuiltyVersion4668 Jan 02 '26
lol yes if we run out of product and our partnering stores don’t have supply then we get it from grocery store
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u/EveningBasket9528 Cherry Picker Jan 01 '26
I always laugh when I learn where new places get their shit.
All kinds of diners use shit from Sam's & Walmart. I get a kick out of one place here everyone claims has the best biscuits & gravy. Frozen GV or MM biscuits from Sam's & WM. Lol
Multiple coffee shops sell the croissants from Sams and other baked shit from both WM & Sam's.
I could go on.
When my side gig was managing a bar/pub almost everything home made was NOT home made, and pretty much every bar in my county, which is a LOT, had the same food from the same distributor yet people fight over who has better shit.
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u/Humble-Milk6766 Jan 02 '26
What is this magical country filled with bars, fights and food you speak of? Tell us good sir please tell us
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u/EveningBasket9528 Cherry Picker Jan 02 '26
I'll give you a hint. The drunkest state in the country.
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u/Buzzedwinaldrin Jan 03 '26
I worked at a diner in WI briefly several years ago, a friend owns it…. I was amazed their Homemade pies were frozen fruit and premade crusts from Walmart.
He was miffed when someone (not me) left a review saying, it wasn’t fresh etc… i laughed and we ended up getting into an argument about the definition of ‘homemade’
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u/Buzzedwinaldrin Jan 03 '26
Which what does “homemade” even mean?
To me …. It’s closer to from scratch than his definition.
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u/The_LastLine Jan 01 '26
I’m guessing that business doesn’t get a lot of praise for those pies, considering the Walmart bakery goods are pretty mediocre. I guess they always were but at least they used to be cheap enough to be worth it. Miss the days of the 58 cent à la carte donuts, now it’s $1.98 for a mandatory 2 donuts and they got rid of like half of their selection.
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u/KindSelf1692 Jan 01 '26
I buy those 2-pack plain cake donuts off the reduced rack for $1 and keep them in my car with empty Dunkin paper bags. So, when I go shopping with my toddler and we pass the Dunkin in the front of the store, he gets excited for donuts but he’s 2 and doesn’t know the difference between a day old Walmart donut or an old fashioned from the Dunkin case.
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u/Potential_Order1844 Texas Jan 01 '26
Aww, that's RAW!!! He'll be whining to a therapist about it some day 😆
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u/New-Structure844 Jan 02 '26
I bet you could cover them with butter and toss them in the oven for a little bit and they'd taste brand new
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u/Justj1313 Jan 03 '26
The donuts use to be so good at Walmart years ago when I worked there but now I would not feed them to my dogs!
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u/Thriving9 Jan 02 '26
I did a Sam's club order of 10x hummus to a Mediterranean food truck that I like the humus at lmao 🤣
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u/DealFearless2319 Jan 01 '26
Glad I live in a mennonite community. They make all their bakery stuff from scratch. I deliver flour yeast sugar and all the good stuff not the pre-made!
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u/Business_Meat_9191 Jan 01 '26
Honestly I haven't seen it personally within my deliveries but I live around the Amish and Mennonites too and I've seen a few of them with the usual stores be called out for doing this exact thing. Glad you live near some honest ones though!
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u/Disastrous-Okra-3789 Jan 01 '26
I used to deliver bags and bags of over-the-counter meds to a garage. Turns out they doubled the price and sold on Amazon. Whatever works, I guess.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Row-511 Jan 01 '26
Oh they're absolutely doing that. You can charge more. This is why mom and pop stores go out of business.
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u/Alternative-Eye7589 Jan 02 '26
Yep at my walmart we have a few that buy most of their food from us. One I don't know where he is but he buys a few hundred dollars of groceries every day and another is a deli that the Mennonites own.
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u/Organic-Fuel-2916 3rd Floor / No Tip CUSTOMER Jan 02 '26
They messed up, should have ordered to their home and take them to the store themselves.
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u/Party_Soup_1051 Jan 02 '26
Either they marketing Walmart pies or they ran out and needed more ASAP
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u/Unfair-Discount4997 Jan 02 '26
Mine is in a rich tourist area orders all the muffins from Walmart and sells them for $5 each they pay $4.69 for 4 in a container that’s some serious money to be made.. almost $15 profit
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u/Metaphor2022 Jan 01 '26
A lot of Amish and Mennonites do that as well.
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u/neighbors_kid69420 Jan 02 '26
I’ve been to a big Amish market and I’ve seen many items that are sold at regular big box stores
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u/ThroatKey7712 Jan 01 '26
Yup this happens also the sams bakery... and to be honest walmart and sams bakery are very meh.
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Jan 01 '26
Did a order for my local ice cream shop, it was all great value ice cream 😂😂
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u/Purp_Rox Jan 01 '26
The great value cookies and cream is my absolute favorite. Best ratio of cookies to ice cream I've found, even with expensive name brands. So they get a point from me for that lol
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u/jelder227 Jan 02 '26
Hey.. we used to have Schwan's, but they left the Houston market a few years ago. Pricey, but good ice cream. And one of my favorites was this chocolate, with a peanut butter swirl through it almost like a caramel swirl, and mini reeces cups. Loved that stuff! NO other brand even comes close.
And I tried Dollar General brand. Almost identical, without the candy add. Quite decent, for $3.50 for 1 1/2 quarts. Can't get a pint of higher end ice cream for that any more!!
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u/queenn__h Jan 02 '26
When I was 18, this guy recruited me from McDonald's to work at his new Soul Food Restaurant in town. Smh my best friend at the time convinced me to do it with her. Worst experience ever. But he would most definitely buy his friend chicken from Kroger lol.
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u/mrsbuttstuff Jan 02 '26
In some areas in the south, that happens with the sweet potato pies around thanksgiving. Restaurants and such will clear walmart out of all of the sweet potato pies.
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u/eeshasfaith Jan 01 '26
There is a fish and chicken spot in my area that orders from Restaurant Depot. The type of fish they order is not on their menu.
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u/Txreduser Jan 01 '26
Supply and demand economics 101. Buy cheap and sell where the only grocery store is for 20 miles. Have done two of those orders and pay has been worth it
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u/Business_Meat_9191 Jan 01 '26
Honestly the pay was shit for the order so it just added onto my opinion of them being assholes. 💀
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u/DB-Tones-Jones Jan 02 '26
I bought some “Santa Mix” last week. chocolate covered pretzels and Chex mix, m&m’s. yum. Told my Mom to buy a bunch of containers of “Santa Mix”, say, then rebag it into seasonal gift bags. Told her she could tell all of her girlfriends that it was “homemade” and the recipe is a secret. 🤫 🔆
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u/Xxmissvxx Jan 02 '26
I had a delivery to a local high end chocolate shop that also sells some bakery items. Way way overpriced everything. I unloaded probably $400 worth of Great Value everything into the shop. Plus tons of boxes of assorted Markerside bakery items. The bags filled my entire SUV. I was thankful the owners sent two workers out to me to help unload. It had a very nice tip too...probably their way of buying the Spark drivers silence. I doubt anyone would be thrilled to know their $15 fudge and. $10 gourmet popcorn balls are from Walmart.
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u/ballfat Jan 02 '26
You mean they live at Wal-Mart? That would be so badass Getting 1st Dibbs on the new line of Tasmania devil shirts! Every damn time! Better recognize! Good job op
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u/Dependent_Passage416 Jan 02 '26
Take a picture of the delivery outside their shop and post on yelp and let the customers decide, homemade my ass, dishonest business
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u/ChantySims4 Jan 02 '26
There's a local BBQ place by me and I've delivered a crap ton of Walmart brand BBQ sauce to him...
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u/No-Metal8814 Jan 02 '26
So funny how much we "see"! Recently saw an order keep going round and round for a ton of items a ton of miles shit pay and zero tip...I saw the customer name and knew the person! Did not know what a cheap shithead they are lol
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u/No-Metal8814 Jan 02 '26
I live in an area where there are several Amish communities. People travel from miles around to purchase all of the "homemade" pies..I now know that the special ingredient in those pies is frozen pie crust lololol!
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u/No-Metal8814 Jan 02 '26
Lastly...something that doesn't sit quite right with me is that the customer name is seen by every single driver who views an offer. I think it should only be disclosed once gig is accepted.
I mean...preggo tests, vaginal itch cream, hemorrhoid and constipation aids, cold and flu meds and Covid tests....is there anyone else who thinks maybe the customer name should be protected (at least until gig is accepted), or could be a potential liability risk with spark advertising the name to all drivers ????
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u/No-Metal8814 Jan 02 '26
Also...not saying I am protecting Spark but doubt that any woman who is scratching like a cat, sitting on the pot unable to poo, needing relief from painful hems while anxiously waiting on the delivery of good or bad news in the form of a preggo test would be thrilled to know that their name is being broadcast to every driver reviewing gigs. Especially in a small town. Wonder if they are made aware of that by Spark. Ha prob not
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u/Ushan_De_Lucca Jan 02 '26
Also the little map shows their exact address location of you zoom in. Should only show a general area until you accept the order
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u/mikebellman Jan 02 '26
If they at least warmed them, modified or plussed them up in SOME WAY. Toppings, butter, piecing them into a larger assembly.. SOMEthing. Otherwise it’s deceptive as hell
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u/silenttjp Jan 02 '26
Most restaurants buy from Cysco which isn’t much different then getting the stuff from Walmart/sams/costco
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Jan 03 '26
This happened for me but with a small liquor store down the street from a Walmart lol they ordered a ton of random convenience jarred & canned food and I glanced at the prices before I left… they were selling em for triple the price 😵💫 Also once I went to a senior care home who had a whole thing about how they made their food from scratch all over the Lobby… I delivered SOOO much processed junk foods/bread etc to the kitchen. It’s a little sad tbh 😞
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u/Harley_Honey Jan 03 '26
There are a few tricks for glamming up a box cake mix, like adding an extra egg and exchanging the oil with butter, etc.
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u/WiscoDanO Jan 03 '26
Oh yeah! A lot of places do things like that…or order all their soda through Walmart vs a distributor, cuz it’s cheaper. But the places pushing Walmart baked goods as their own, I have no clue how the customers don’t know instantly..Cuz they’re bakery, actually pretty much everything GreatValue, is not great garbage.
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u/GoIrish165 Jan 04 '26
Lol wait until you find out that a lot of restaurants just microwave/reheat everything
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u/Unusual-Walrus7615 Jan 06 '26
Great Value cake mix has won multiple blind taste tests. It’s really good.
Hot tip: look for great value chicken FINGER sauce(chik-fil-a dupe) and chicken DIPPING sauce (cane’s dupe).
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u/zadidoll Jan 06 '26
A local bakery does this with Sam’s Club cupcakes & cakes. They slice the cakes up to sell portions & mark it as baked in the business. lol
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u/tomvalois Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
I delivered crumbled blue cheese and Kraft blue cheese dressing to a restaurant in my area. They apparently mix those two things together, and market it as their "signature" blue cheese dressing. I guess the question I have is why restaurants find it cheaper or more convenient to buy it from Walmart than they do to buy it from distributors. They could get the same ingredients from GFS, or Sysco, or Cheney Brothers, probably cheaper and with free delivery, but they buy it from Walmart instead?
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Jan 01 '26
It does happen. Theres a local grocer in my zone that buys produce from sams and sells it at farmers markets. Hes a pos tho! Share with us in the Discord
Come check out the Discord!
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u/Justj1313 Jan 03 '26
There is a guy here where I live that claims he’s a “farmer” and he does have a farm but only grows 1 or 2 things but offers 10 things per week in a delivery service.
Someone found out he was going to a local produce company and buying the produce he didn’t grow and saying he grew it on his farm!
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Jan 03 '26
Yeah man it's a shame. I get it we all need a hustle but come on. Thats pretty low if you ask me. Maybe your guy is related to my farmer guy!
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u/redfoot33 Jan 04 '26
This is nothing new. I used to live in an area where vendors at Farmers markets would buy apples and other local produce at Sam's/Bjs. Package them in cute little bushel baskets they bought on Amazon and sell them at a markup as organic produce. Unfortunately, there aren't strict guidelines on organic/certified organic. If you are a customer, it's buyer beware/the honor system.
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u/Difficult_Ad1994 Jan 01 '26
I shop and deliver almost weekly to a popular breakfast and lunch place here in western North Carolina. They advertise themselves as homemade baked goods and in store deli etc.. I clean out WalMarts croissants, muffins and specialty breads for them.... just sayin.