So how much of that new French bread has your store thrown away? A case (16 loaves) each hour for three hours is ridiculous. We probably wouldn't sell one case the entire evening. Anytime they do something like that and insist you do so much whether you know it's going to sell or not, somebody is getting kickbacks from it. It doesn't make sense to waste the time and the product on something that doesn't sell.
Where does the hot french bread get put?? Is there some kind of new hot holding bin for it?. You have to build up a "history" to let you know how many to make. Right now it is a new thing so there is no real data to go by. The customers don't know about it yet but hopefully with time they will realize and start to buy it regularly. Save the old stuff and give it to the chef to make bread pudding.
-- Edited by thedude on Thursday 14th of March 2013 04:40:30 PM
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I am no longer part of the oppressed, evil workforce of Kroger! Can you say "Hallelujah"
We started that on Tuesday finally. We made 12 loaves every hour from 4-6. 4 pm, 4 actually sold. 5 and 6, NONE sold.
Yesterday, I was told, lets try making 5 loaves at a time. I'm sure someone will tell us to make more eventually, but in 3 rounds, only 1 or 2 of them sold.
I didn't even have time to bake cookies last night so now more important stuff is going to get cut (we're already way short on hours with someone who quit and our manager on vacation now) over this stupid bread!!
Here's another stupid thing about it. Around 2:00 we're suppose to bake 8 loaves so they can cool and be made into garlic breads At 4:00 pm we're suppose to put out the garlic breads and 16 loaves of hot bread. The hot bread goes in paper bags and we're not suppose to seal them or even fold the ends over. The hot bread and the garlic breads go on a special rack. At 5:00 pm we're suppose to put out 16 more loaves of hot bread. Any bread left from the hour before gets move down to the bottom shelf and the hot bread is put on the top shelves. If anymore garlic bread is needed, it's made from the cold leftover bread from the previous hour. At 6:00 the process is repeated. The next day the leftover garlic bread is put on the regular bread shelves. The leftover plain bread is sliced, re-bagged in a regular plastic bag, and re-tagged and put out. Personally I wouldn't want to buy any bread that's been exposed to the air and all dried out, let alone all the dirt and germs from people's hands who've handled it during the night.
Where does the hot french bread get put?? Is there some kind of new hot holding bin for it?. You have to build up a "history" to let you know how many to make. Right now it is a new thing so there is no real data to go by. The customers don't know about it yet but hopefully with time they will realize and start to buy it regularly. Save the old stuff and give it to the chef to make bread pudding.
-- Edited by thedude on Thursday 14th of March 2013 04:40:30 PM
Ours is near the front of the store where people will see it. Truth is if they buy it once they're not going to buy it again. It's not very good. It's the same way with the 12 count mini glazed donut program they keep pushing. I've been in the bakery department for over 20 years and I can tell you almost immediately if a new item is going to be a hit or a flop. I know quality when I see it and I know how much people are willimg to spend.
Where does the hot french bread get put?? Is there some kind of new hot holding bin for it?. You have to build up a "history" to let you know how many to make. Right now it is a new thing so there is no real data to go by. The customers don't know about it yet but hopefully with time they will realize and start to buy it regularly. Save the old stuff and give it to the chef to make bread pudding.
-- Edited by thedude on Thursday 14th of March 2013 04:40:30 PM
Ours is near the front of the store where people will see it. Truth is if they buy it once they're not going to buy it again. It's not very good. It's the same way with the 12 count mini glazed donut program they keep pushing. I've been in the bakery department for over 20 years and I can tell you almost immediately if a new item is going to be a hit or a flop. I know quality when I see it and I know how much people are willimg to spend.
But then they blame the employees for not pushing their crappy product hard enough.
They were pushing it hard at my store today. I saw that they had 20 loaves on the rack upfront, but it didn't have a sign on the price of it. I think it would be brighter to have Rotisserie chicken sitting on it near the registers, but thats just me.
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Today the deli manager came down and asked me how the bread program was going, and I said not so good, she suggested that I make announcements on the speaker tonight, so I wrote up a little thing and announced it at 4pm, put out samples, the whole thing.
We've tried various 'Aggressive Sales Programs' at times....The funniest and most ridiculous one I've seen to date was when we had our automotive dept. guys walking around the grocery dept. basically pimping out with "Hi! Care to have your oil changed or your tires rotated today?" Needless to say, peeps were like WHAAAAT???? Get AWAY from me! LOL~~
