So here's the text of the message I posted on their customer service page.
Fresh green peas are available only a few weeks out of every year. I happen to like them, and whenever you have them I will buy them. The problem is that whenever I try to buy them, I have trouble getting the right price.
This isn't just this year. It has happened repeatedly, year after year. I spoke to the store manager about it a few years ago, but it still happens.
At the checkout counter, year after year I've fouind that if I don't tell the checker what they are, they will always ring them in as either snow peas or snap peas -- both of which are always more expensive than plain old fresh peas. And if I do tell the checker that they are green peas, they often still can't find the right code. This year they've done ok, but last year they had to know to look under "F" (for "fresh English peas") on their produce lists. The year before it was listed under something else.
I tried the using the self-checkout two days ago, figuring that I might avoid the confusion that I always run into with the checkout clerks. I searched through the produce selections on the touch screen under "G" for "green peas", "F" for "fresh green peas", and "P" for "peas". The only thing listed was "pea pods", which I pretty much knew was going to be wrong, but I selected it anyhow and it rang in as snap peas -- at a higher price than it should have been. I had to call an employee over to void the item and look up the correct code.
Peas are almost never price-marked in the produce section. This year, they are marked "Pole Beans". I asked one of the produce dept. employees to get me the price, and she showed me the pole beans price card told me that her manager had told her that's what they were! Pole beans are much bigger than fresh peas!
I've had cases where the checker couldn't find the price so she sent someone over to the produce department to find it, but they couldn't find it -- or they came back with something that was clearly wrong. There's got to be a better way! I've talked to people in the produce department. I've asked them to look up the register code for me so that I can tell the checker, but they tell me that they don't know the register codes for the products. They only know the prices. The checkers only know the codes, not the prices. And neither of them seem to reliably know the difference between peas, snow peas, snap peas, and beans!
I don't know if it's just the Royal Ridge store that has this problem with fresh peas. I suspect that it's probably not. I suspect that quite a few people overpay for them every year, at many of your stores, while they're in season, because they don't pay attention at the register when they ring in as snap peas -- or even more expensive snow peas.
I try to keep in good humor about this. Today I decided against trying the self-checkout again, and I went to one of full service lines. I skipped the express line because I didn't want to hold up people behind me if the checker didn't know what to do. Before the girl rang anything up, I asked her "Do you know what these are?" She looked and said "some kind of beans?" I told her what they were, and told her to look under "F" -- and she did find the right code. Still, I don't think I should have to tell the checkers what the merchandise is and letter to look under on their chart!
I know that fresh peas are not exactly a huge seller, and there's a lot of turnover of employees so it's hard to be sure that they all know what the more obscure produce selections are, but the produce department employees -- or at least the produce manager -- ought to know the difference between pole beans and fresh peas so that the correct price could be posted. And what would be amazingly helpful (not just for peas, but also for any other highly seasonal produce items) would be to make sure that the correct register code is posted on the price ticket.
OK... end of rant ;-)