When was the last time you did a scales refresher with your fresh-cut personnel?
Do you zero out your tare weights regularly? How often?
We’re not just talking about a sample here and there. The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs called it “the worst case of mislabeling they have seen in their entire careers.”
Every single sample – 80 total, from all of the NYC stores – was underweight.
So, that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.
But what if you have a scale in a store or fresh-cut commissary that’s off. Say, it’s off for a week, or two weeks.
How many customers just got over – or UNDER – charged?
It’s worth checking up on, and maybe doing a refresher training with your personnel.
Oh, you think it doesn’t happen in your stores? Right. I see about 200 stores a year, most of which offer some kind of fresh-cut.
I don’t check every single item in every single store, but I do regularly find mis-marked, mis-labeled fresh-cut items.
I keep finding those errors at my local Wal-Mart, where someone keeps getting the amazing idea to do their own in-house pineapple. Items are marked as if weighed, with everything being exactly 1 pound.
The problem? They printed all of those tickets and THEN applied them to tubs. Tubs that weigh anywhere from ¾ a pound to a pound and a half.
Yeah, that’s bad.
And sure, some people would say that’s Wal-Mart for ya, but they’re not the only ones, and judging by the number of these that I see in my relatively small sample of stores, I’m sure it’s a bigger problem than you think.