Any meat employees out there please give info about grinding for customers. At my store in Michigan, when the grinder log stuff started, we were told not to grind ANYTHING for customers any more... no steak.. no roasts, especially not pork..EVER. We have one meatcutter that wants to do whatever people want, even if it is against the rules and grinds stuff. WE don't agree with this grinding rule, but EVERYONE else doesn't want to loose are jobs over it. Our coordinator said my store was the ONLY one in his zone that has a problem with this.. any thoughts??
Been a marker manager in Texas ( store 488 in McKinney) for about 5 years and in the meat department for 20 years. Here is the standards got grinding as it was always preached to me. Grinding for customers is still permitted and is part of customer service. There was never a company policy that said not to. Now stores can up charge on the items and in our store we will sometimes do that when there get a cheap item ( briskets or chuck roasts on sale) and charge more unless they have a large order and then use common sense. All it takes is to log into the gun and go thru the process of logging the grind in as other and customer request. Also keep in mind the more grinds that is logged in then the more hours or time that ELMS will Allow for you. After the grind then the grinder is to be broken down, cleaned , sanitized and left to air dry before using it again. We will grind ,on customer requests, but are not to grind anything but Beef and beef only. Other commodities such as pork is not to be done. Mainly because of cross contamination. Best thing to do is follow what your meat MR says since he is the boss over the markets and the one with the most knowledge and responsibilities of the market and the policies such as grinding. You should also have the policies on your kroger web site under the Meat department and they should all be poster in your market. Ours are. Our district manager just does not like to see us grinding reduced meats or loss leaders for customers without up charging to cover the cost of labor. Without the up charge we would get killed when they got a good brisket ad such as .99 #. Bottom line is that the beef can be ground for customers but you then have to clean and sanitize the grinder right away. then you are down for quite some time until it air dries.
Some of the policies goes back many years to a 20/20 report on Food Lion and the practices they had for poor quality and unethical practices thru out all their perishable departments. Was once a time when you could grind old meat if you got it before it was bad or out of date and put it into hamburg trimmings. Also was a nation wide report done by i was to think Date Line on ground beef. They found traces of different commodities mixed in with beef that would be a direct result of poor cleaning and sanitation. One of the Stores was a Tom Thumb store on Dallas that showed traces of lamb and pork in some ground beef. Again to the best of my knowledge and what I was told is this. Kroger went to the grinding policies and the pre-packed fluff packs for better consistency, tracking purposes and liability issues. Ground beef sales dropped and the present policies was created to assure customers of the safety of Kroger ground beef. Now their has been a time or two where I have ground some pork for a customer but that is as the end of the night and the last grind for the day. Now one thing I have never done is sign any of the policies and paper work they sent down on the grinding or any other items they want to change. Seems if you do that then you have circumvented the union contract. I still follow all they send down but just do not sign the papers they tell us we have to without checking with the union first.
Hey Grumpy~ I've been with Kroger on and off for 25 years. When I first started with them we ground EVERYTHING.. mixed lamb trim with the beef, etc. like you said. Just recently like in the last year or so have we been told through an email from our meat merchandiser that we can't grind for customers any more. DO you have key retailling there? And grinder logs...cutting lists?? We were told that if you can't log what you are grinding.. you can't grind it. People have been written up in my store for falsifying grinder logs..not scanning" grinder clean" after cleaning and more. Apparently, this policy of NO GRINDING is not companywide....that's what I was looking to find out...just like Kroger around here.. inconsistent with policies and holding people responsible. One time they do something, the next time they don't. Go figure.. thanks for the replies.
Yes. We started with the Cutting list and tools about 4 years ago. Shortly after that we atarted the certification waves. Grinding log with the RF gun started about a year ago. Now we have not been told to refure grinding for customers. Just can only grind beef and that only. AQll we do is log in and scroll down to other and type in customer request and the sell by date that was on the package. Now what I was always told is that it is company wide that you can only grind beef commodaties only and that the grinder must be cleaned right away and sanitized before any other gring. It is also like this. Never always gets done 100 percent and management knows it, they just want to make sure that when any company or PNG come in, that you stop what you are doing and clean it right away. Only thing our meat MRs has said is that we can grind for a customer but toi do it after we get other grinds done first. We can grinf differant beef chubs without stopping to clean before customer requests or trimmings. But once the trimmings or customer requests are done, we have to clean it before any other beef grinds are run. We have had people written up for failure to log in grinds.
meatboy wrote:
Hey Grumpy~ I've been with Kroger on and off for 25 years. When I first started with them we ground EVERYTHING.. mixed lamb trim with the beef, etc. like you said. Just recently like in the last year or so have we been told through an email from our meat merchandiser that we can't grind for customers any more. DO you have key retailling there? And grinder logs...cutting lists?? We were told that if you can't log what you are grinding.. you can't grind it. People have been written up in my store for falsifying grinder logs..not scanning" grinder clean" after cleaning and more. Apparently, this policy of NO GRINDING is not companywide....that's what I was looking to find out...just like Kroger around here.. inconsistent with policies and holding people responsible. One time they do something, the next time they don't. Go figure.. thanks for the replies.
Meat Boy, Hey I am a Meat Mgr here in Michigan, and well, I will grind beef and beef only, and only if the time permits. In my store, the meat dept does 70 a week and above and on two cutters or less.
What is the difference between grinding a roast or grinding trim?
No, I will not grind anything other than beef.
Though again, there was a time when we had to grind EVERYTHING...the worst were those damn bird balls!!!
You are making a customer happy and they will want to come back.
I hate taking the time to do it, but it is our customers that is making our paycheck for you.
A lot of times though when I explain to them that they may lose a 1/4 to a 1/2 a lb of meat in the grinder head, they do change their minds.
As far as ELMS goes...I think that is the most screwed up system in the world...Micromanagement at its worst
Still do not quite get it. Hotter that hell this time of year and still got customers that wants 1 or 2 pounds of Chilli meat ground. Most of the time I can convince them and they are happy with me dicing up lean cuts of cheap meat into very tiny pieces for Chili. That seems to save grinding something and have not had a customer mad yet. But I know I an in Texas but Chilli when it is a 100 degrees out side?
As a Co-manager, I would hate to hear from any customer that any sort of cutom cut was denied, or charged a premium for. This s not in line with the customer 1st strategy of hour company. I realize the market is alot of times short staffed, or not given adequate hours by ELMS but that is no excuse to forget why we have a job in the first place...because of the customer. Especially here in the DFW area competition is more fierce than ever, and they all sell groceries just like us. We must strive to set us apart from the rest and increase or market share.
This is true and we at 488 try not to refuse anything ground on a customer request but then common sense has to play into it. Take a good brisket sale priced at .97 cents a lb. Had a few of them where the customers came in and would by just them and their $10 minimum and want them ground for free. Did that for many times but one week , the district manager ( Bill Sturm) noticed several markets having to do 20 to 30 grinds a day ( have to log in each customer request to grind) and directed his store managers to up charge for grinding big lost leaders on sale. We look at it this way. Customer wants 2 briskets ground and that is all they got, then they are paying the up charge to the same price as a trimmed brisket. If they got a cart load of groceries and meats then we just grind it and no up charge.
Anonymous wrote:
As a Co-manager, I would hate to hear from any customer that any sort of cutom cut was denied, or charged a premium for. This s not in line with the customer 1st strategy of hour company. I realize the market is alot of times short staffed, or not given adequate hours by ELMS but that is no excuse to forget why we have a job in the first place...because of the customer. Especially here in the DFW area competition is more fierce than ever, and they all sell groceries just like us. We must strive to set us apart from the rest and increase or market share.
