Usually, produce is along one of the perimeter walls and most people shop that area first. This ridiculous remodel they're doing has it in the middle of the store. It seems rather illogical to put it there. They also have the deli and the frozen food and dairy sections on opposite sides of the store now. So now you can pick up some chicken and have it be cold by the time you get all the way through the store to the frozen food and dairy, OR you can get your frozen items first and have them be thawed by the time you get to the deli. So do you settle for cold chicken or melted ice cream?
I work for Harris Teeter and our Produce Department is the 1st thing people see when they enter the store. The Deli and Bakery are along the wall on the right, with the cheese/pizza in the middle.
The new Kroger has their Produce section in the front/middle. Customers see it when they enter the store, but do not have to walk through it if they don't want to.
The main doors are in the front right of the store. The Dairy section is the back left. Frozen is far left between the Pharmacy in one corner and Dairy in the back left.
Basically, customers must walk by/through Produce to get to the Grocery aisles.
I enjoy the customers, but sometimes feel like a store guide. "Yes sir, nuts are on aisle 5." "Ice cream is in the Frozen Foods section on the other side of the store." etc....
produce is usually near an entrance. we have lots of stores with deli bakery side-by-side with produce; it's common among competitors on both coasts as well.
I know a couple stores with produce and deli on opposite sides. One of them went through a remodel in the past couple years. It's not typical.
They do these designs with lots of deep dive customer shopping habit data particular to that store. My local store's remodel layout doesn't make any sense to me but I rarely go there and never applied because it's not a good store even with the remodel.
My store's produce dept. is when you first walk in the doors, on the right side along the walls and around the corner.
The bakery is then on the other end from that wall, down past nutrition. Deli's beside that, then meat department, then frozen and dairy all the way down at the end.
My store has it in the middle, but who the hell cares really? It's not like we lost any customers over moving it to the middle. In fact, it makes more sense because people who want a damn salad for their lunch hour no longer have to walk to a far corner called Egypt to obtain said item.
My store's produce department is the first thing that anyone sees when they first walk in. I haven't seen much of this change out of the two stores that I've been to, but it may be different elsewhere from what I'm reading on here. I guess it all depends on what corporate decides the floor plan should be.
I feel your pain.. I too work in Produce and this happens all the time that I have to tell people where everything in the store is. Part of it is due to being at the main enterance and part of it is because the grocery, drug/gm people are never on the floor to ask so the only people they see on the floor are in Produce and half the time I have no ****ing idea where half the stuff they're asking for is at.
Special on the news today about supermarkets. They say they know to pump baked bread smell and roasted chicken into the air to increase sales. So thats the first thing you should smell when you enter. Not here the produce is at the door and it stinks! The store is known to stink I believe because the rotting produce is at the door vs. bakery/deli.
News report said they found a 12 year old apple in one store. Said it was very important to check the harvest time on the items to make sure they were harvested in the season you are in.
They also said one grocery store made bigger shopping carts and sales went up 19%. lol
