Im an asst. head of deli/bakery and standards are driving me crazy. Order evolution shows i sell maybe 5 units a week, yet standards say i need to keep 12 on a table all the time. 3 day shelf life means we need to make 24 per week, just to keep up to standards then the 5 we will sell. Producing 29 and throwing away 24 and yet they harp all the time about waste and profits. Anyone else bothered by this?
I'm with you. We waste so much and we don't get enough of what we actually sell. They want to profit they need to order and prep less of what they don't sell and more of what they do. The store I work at has been open for several years now. They should know by now what sells the most, during what season, and all year round. They should also know by now what time of the day and day of week, what sells the most. I've only worked there 4 months and can tell you what sells the most, in the Deli, year round, seasonal, time of day, and day of the week. Our Head should discuss this with her Head, then needs to bring it up at the meetings and to the RGM.
Yes, you are absolutely right, and I am bothered by this kind of thing. So do you think the president of Kroger knows about this, or really cares? Sometimes I wonder.
I'm also an assistant bakery head. It drives me crazy as well. All of our tables have to be 3 high all the way around the table all the time. They want to complain about shrink or wonder why we have so many markdowns everyday. Well if you have a table that needs to be 3 high with only a 3 day shelf life you are going to have shrink. A while back we got rid of some of our slow moving items and then our Perishable Coordinator was in and had us order those items back in when they gave us bigger tables. I really don't think they care, they just want the customers to come into a fully stocked department. It is only going to get worse for us as we are in the middle of becoming a marketplace store and they will be adding more product, most of which we won't be able to sell. As it is, we have people that just come in to look for markdowns.
Rather than throw out, why not just dramatically reduce the price? Yes, you'll loose money but still make a sale. For example: if you have a single serve cake for $4.00, when it's time to pull it, why not put $1.00 price on it? You'll still make a small amount of money, and cut back on product being tossed out
You are not allowed to mark down anything that has the 'sell by" date of the present (current) day. For instance, if we have piles of a particular item marked APRIL 12, we have to toss all of them, not mark them down. Theoretically, they should be removed from the sales floor by 9:00 am, not always possible.
If you meant that we should be looking ahead and marking down items several days ahead, that is such a guessing game, yes we are supposed to mark things down on a prescribed schedule (so many days ahead for such-and-such item). Still, if it doesn't sell, it doesn't sell.
We are only allowed to mark things down by 50%. The only way we can go lower than that is if we have an over abundance of a certain item, like something the warehouse sends us that we don't normally carry. Or a bunch of holiday items that don't sell. I marked down a lot of Simple Truth granola because they sent out 4 cases of it, but we have not spot for it in any of our sets and I had to ask management do mark it down below cost.
Rather than throw out, why not just dramatically reduce the price? Yes, you'll loose money but still make a sale. For example: if you have a single serve cake for $4.00, when it's time to pull it, why not put $1.00 price on it? You'll still make a small amount of money, and cut back on product being tossed out
Thank goodness for the anonymous nature of this site...cause a time or two I and another associate have done that for a bunch of the 12 count cupcakes and a few of the 6 count ones that were decorated for the Football season. Simply because only freaking 1 of them sold out of like 15 or so being on a display table. They were going like hot cakes on the markdowns.
And sometimes when the ice cream cakes or the ones we have in the freezers are moving at full price, my DH will mark them down to 3.99 or so just to get them moving. But again as other posters mentioned, we get so many of such items at a time or do to keeping up with particular events so many of the cupcakes and stuff get made double and triple time. And at full price they don't move whatsoever.
But honestly I wish we could do what our Deli does at times. If there is extra salad that can't fit in a pain out in the serving case or in the cold case, they just slap a make it right sticker of free on there. So be awesome if we could let someone get like a free item from the bakery if they are picking up goods that say total 25 bucks or more or something on the house. Especially for stuff fromt he pastry case. As we hardly sell enough of that stuff out of there unless it's really small.
I was reading your comments and I'm working on a documentary about food waste in grocery stores. I'd love to speak with you as I have no inside connections in this business.
I'm working with a big production company in Los Angeles.
Welcome to working a food job where you end up tossing out a ton of food. Yes if we could disturbed our food to society no one would go hungry. Because kroger owns the food and corporations would rather toss it than risk a law suit form food poisoning they toss it.
I've worked a ton of food prep jobs to know this is standard practice.
Don't take it home and eat it. The deli staff did that at a location close to mine and they terminated the entire deli staff. One filed a grievance and kept her job because they did not take proper investigation to fire her/them. After watching hours of security footage they repealed two individuals firings. I think she transferred to a new location after that. I don't blame her. I would of too. They just said you're all fired bye.
You do not take company property home and eat it. That's not how it works.
Rather than overtake, make just enough you think will sell and stick with that. Sometimes its better to "make less" than make too much and results in shrink.
That's what we do. If they say make 20 packages of muffins and we only sold 10, then we have 10 left overs unsold, destined to be composted/tossed.
But if we make 15 instead of 20 and sell all but 5, then it's less shrink.
We NEVER follow schematics. We make ONLY what will sell within the shelf life. And if it's selling and running low, we make a few more to add to it and that's it.
Rather than overtake, make just enough you think will sell and stick with that. Sometimes its better to "make less" than make too much and results in shrink. That's what we do. If they say make 20 packages of muffins and we only sold 10, then we have 10 left overs unsold, destined to be composted/tossed. But if we make 15 instead of 20 and sell all but 5, then it's less shrink. We NEVER follow schematics. We make ONLY what will sell within the shelf life. And if it's selling and running low, we make a few more to add to it and that's it.
In the old days the bakery manager would decide how much holiday or sale product to order. That was taken away a few years ago. Now someone who has no idea about what sells and what doesn't sell at each store makes that decision. They assume all stores are the same. We end up with tons of product that doesn't sell even after being marked down. Luckily we are able to donate most of it to the local food bank. There's still the problem of all the time wasted handling the product when we could have been using the time more productively.
I remember last year they kept sending us big cases of uniced red velvet cupcakes. They had a year shelf life if kept frozen, and even with that, we ended up having to donate several cases of them. We didn't donate them all at once. We would get rid of two cases each day until they were gone. Back last summer they had a cake-o-rama sale and sent us 20 cases (yes, I said 20) of each type of uniced sheet cake expecting somebody to do something with them. We were able to use most of them for orders for the next several months, but several still went out of date.
Whenever there are sales on things in the bakery, we have to put the item on display all over the store. So we end up having to make more product than we would actually sell just so the displays look full. The majority of food waste that's going on isn't being caused by the people at the store level. It's the people from corporate.
