A video has gone mega-viral, showing two shoppers climbing straight into a grocery store meat display case and sprawling out on top of packaged steaks, chicken, and fish to beat the scorching heat.
In the footage, a woman in an orange tank top and a companion scramble into the open-top cooler. They lie down right on the plastic-wrapped raw meat packages, posing, laughing, and gesturing as cold vapor billows around them. Bystanders can be seen filming the stunt in the background of what looks like a typical American supermarket meat department.
“People are now climbing into supermarket meat coolers and laying on top of the packages just to cool down during this brutal heat wave!” the caption reads.
The outrageous scene comes amid a historic heat dome roasting the eastern U.S. New York City hit 100 degrees, its first time since 2012, while Philadelphia tied a record from 1901. Stores across the region are packed with shoppers seeking relief, but most aren’t turning the meat case into a personal chill zone.
Online reaction was swift and savage.“Get off somebody’s food!” one user raged. “I would make them buy all that.”Others demanded the store throw out every contaminated package and hunt down the pair to make them pay for the ruined inventory. “They should both be arrested and forced to pay for all the food they just contaminated,” another wrote.
Experts say the stunt isn’t just gross, it’s a serious food safety risk. Climbing into the cooler introduces bacteria, skin cells, clothing fibers, and who knows what else onto products meant for customers’ dinner tables. In extreme heat, any contamination can accelerate spoilage fast.
Stores will almost certainly have to discard the entire affected section to protect shoppers and avoid liability.
This isn’t the first time desperate heat victims have turned supermarket coolers into makeshift AC units. Similar incidents were reported in China during a brutal 2022 heat wave when temps topped 100 degrees.
But with cooling centers open across cities and air conditioning blasting inside most supermarkets, critics say there’s zero excuse for this kind of behavior.
