Looks normal to me.  Supposed to use blue wrap for frozen tho it doesn't really hold any better.

Last two grocery trucks I unloaded had really sloppy pallets on them.  Dog food on top of wimpy water packs and pop cases and products not tied together.  Everything stacked straight up and then wrapped loosely.

The warehouse is extremely busy right now.   That is why the trucks have been later than normal.

I heard that they let workers go before they can finish probation so the warehouse can avoid paying benefits. Not sure how much truth there is to it. Tho, about every 3 months we get really crappy pallets.

The order selector is given a pick list.  The warehouse is set up in a certain order.  The selector starts at one point and goes up and down aisles.   Whatever is at the beginning of the list goes on the bottom of the pallet and so on.  Usually, they have two pallets on the machine and can hold certain items aside until the stack foundation is built.  Sometimes, there is no avoiding a crappy stack.

The selector has a short amount of time to select the two pallets.

I had one truck that had a frozen pallet all the way to the front, an icecream pallet stacked very unevenly on another pallet next to it and then a third in the center holding everything up. The door was then closed.  They did not need to stack the icecream pallet.  It wasn't just a little uneven.  The icecream pallet was almost at a 30 degree angle!  Needless to say, when I moved the third pallet, 4 layers of icecream fell off.  OK, It didn't fall, but I had to hand stack it on another pallet before it fell...  I always have a spare 15 minutes for occasions like this.....

Pic of how pallet was parked out of trailer:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nvrsip&s=5

But it's "normal" to stack it like that!! Don't you know we sell busted, crushed product?

Seriously though; not only is it a safety hazard, it damages product and no customer wants to buy damaged goods. Would THEY buy damaged product??

All I can say is ...Wow!   

Well maybe they occasionally don't build a decent pallet but I bet they know how to spell PALLET and It's not pilot. Pilot is a dumb looking Honda vehicle or a person that flys a plane. You try riding fast on bumpy roads for a couple hours and see if you haven't shifted a bit. If that's the worst thing that happens to you on the job then you've got it made! So you've got to restack a few cases... I guarantee you that's a whole lot better than working at the D.C. in a freezer suit at zero or -20 degrees for 10-12 hrs a day. By the way that's totally false about them firing people before they get their ninety days in- most folks decide that  the hard, physical, timed work is too demanding or they can't take the cold, wet, insanely crowded and fast paced environment. Turnover rate is about ten times what it is in the stores.  Be glad you are not there!

Really they hire a bunch of foreigners from Burma and they don't care. Just about rate. Then the vocallette system will have you put chips and things like that on the pallet then go have you get tea. Really. Turn over is a very real thing as people can't hang in with the hard work. I can't tell you what it's like at a cold product warehouse just the others.

Seems to me that there's always that one pallet where this is a major issue. I laugh at all the interesting ways these pallets are stacked, and how things are shifted, and how poor of a wrap job they did this time (as opposed to all the other times). of course, I 've had to restack a few of these pallets. I guess that just means more markdowns on crushed, damaged product. And there's your shrink right there! But, on the other hand, to throw it away would be more shrink, so anything you can salvage, and at least mark down, is better than nothing.

Of course, it reminds me of a former manager (from another store) who was so gung ho about pulling a pallet off a trailer. The pallet had spaghetti sauce jars on top and paper towels on the bottom. I had a feeling things were not going to go smoothly with this pallet as soon as I saw it. He had to get at those paper towels fast because customers wanted them...NOW! And he was in a bit of a hurry, as we all can get sometimes. Well, he had a manual jack, and everything was OK until he hit the dock plate. Then...CRASH!!! BROKEN GLASS EVERYWHERE!!! Boy, you would've thought they'd have known to wrap that sucker extra tight, but no. I offered to help clean it (remember, I OFFERED), but no, it was HIS mess and HIS responsibility and HE was going to clean it. He didn't NEED my help...Allrighty, then...Back to work I go...Needless to say, anyone waiting for paper towels were just going to have to wait a little longer...Oh, well...See what happens???

Sad to say, that wasn't the first...OR the last time I would see a pallet like that. Now, I don't even get surprised...just amused...

---

 It's too bad that there's not some way that the pick list itself can be listed in a way where the heaviest items are at the beginning of the list, and lighter items at the end, to make it easier to stack pallets properly. Like some system that would categorize every item according to it's weight...But, that's probably too much trouble and/or expense.

---

 

It depends on the warehouse.  Most Kroger stores are supposed to be set-up the same or are moving in that direction.  If the warehouse only caters to Kroger, then it is possible to move the warehouse around weightwise and aisle friendlywise.

When I worked in dry grocery in the warehouse, Water was first, then salt, then dogfood, then bales of flour.  Those are great for building a solid foundation on two pallets.  Not sure why our pallets come in the way they do. Paper usually took up two pallets and were there own picklist.  Our machine could only carry two pallets at a time.

When I worked in the Dairy warehouse, orange juice and Eggs were first. Cheese and Bagels and then yogurt at the end.  But, we only had maybe 4 cases of yogurt on the order.  It is unbelieveable how much yogurt Kroger sells.

When I worked in the meat warehouse, the pallets were not that big and the cases were easy to stack level.

When I worked in the freezer, we had large tall fiberglass boxes(Ice chests) that we threw everything in, threw dry ice in, velcroed the door and plastic wrapped it.  The main freezer was -20.  The icecream tunnel was -30.  It was only a 100 foot tunnel but I always made my trip thru there quick.

The produce was tricky.  Potatoes and onions were on the bottom.  If the pallets started out bad, there was lots of wrapping to be done!

BTW, the last truck I unloaded wasn't too bad from the Ohio warehouse.

 

 

I work frozen and ice cream is always placed at the bottom of the pallets with veggies/potatoes on top. Problem is during the summer, even 10 minutes in the back room and it starts to melt. We've already had our fair share of pallets tipping over because the bottom melts and causes the edges to crush. I don't see why they can't just put all the ice cream together, or have it on the top so that it's not crucial to the stability of the pallet.