Archived Shocked by how much food we throw away

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CrosstrainInsane

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Seriously though. I've been in consumables for a few weeks and I'm not sure why so much gets tossed, especially in P-fresh. I worked at a grocery store for quite awhile before Target and I really feel like many of the practices from my former job could be helpful at Target.
 
Donate Our donate guy comes 7 days a week. We have a full red tub about 6 or 7 banana boxes full of stuff

Also coupon the meat 3 or 4 days out. And use those 1 dollar off coupons on salads and cut veggies.
 
I once threw away a chub of meat that was worth over $80 because only one person purchased any of it that week. There's almost always at least 5 lbs of "expired" meat and cheese added to the trash can every night.
 
We had that problem until someone realized how much we over order... So they look at how much we actually sell and order such. If a tm over orders and loses a lot of it, they get in trouble. We only over order during holiday times
 
qmosqueen said:
Donate Our donate guy comes 7 days a week. We have a full red tub about 6 or 7 banana boxes full of stuff

Also coupon the meat 3 or 4 days out. And use those 1 dollar off coupons on salads and cut veggies.
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This is something I'm definitely going to look into. We donate more meat than we sell sometimes. Maybe couponing meat sooner will help at our store too. And I've never seen 1 $ off coupons on salads. That would be awesome!
 
MyTH said:
Use coupons, order correctly, & MySupport if you are just receiving way too much.
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I don't do the ordering being that I'm fairly new in the dept. I have brought these issues to our PA, but there's this attitude like "that's the way it is." The dept hasn't had a closer for a while now and that is where they put me. I don't mind it but when I try to do anything outside of pushing cafs, the TL or ETL want to me zone zone ZONE!!!
I understand why zoning is important, but I think getting expired product off of the shelves and filling in outs on sales floor should take priority over the zone. I feel like we order product just to throw it away, meanwhile there is product in the back room when it is empty on the sales floor.
 
CrosstrainInsane said:
I don't do the ordering being that I'm fairly new in the dept. I have brought these issues to our PA, but there's this attitude like "that's the way it is." The dept hasn't had a closer for a while now and that is where they put me. I don't mind it but when I try to do anything outside of pushing cafs, the TL or ETL want to me zone zone ZONE!!!
I understand why zoning is important, but I think getting expired product off of the shelves and filling in outs on sales floor should take priority over the zone. I feel like we order product just to throw it away, meanwhile there is product in the back room when it is empty on the sales floor.
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Sad, but true.

You can do your best to limit the Food Loss, but there will always be a TON of loss in market the way they run their food business.
 
I think I'm going to talk it up more and see if we can make some changes, at least in prioritizing. My main focus when I'm there is to make sure product is fresh. When it comes to perishable merchandise, FRESH is what keeps people returning to buy more. I shudder at the thought of how many guests may have seen expired product on our shelves.

I appreciate everyone's responses
 
Donating is nice, but donating more than you sell is inexcusable.

Target has a lot to learn about effectively running markets, but we know this. From distribution to store.
 
CrosstrainInsane said:
I think I'm going to talk it up more and see if we can make some changes, at least in prioritizing. My main focus when I'm there is to make sure product is fresh. When it comes to perishable merchandise, FRESH is what keeps people returning to buy more. I shudder at the thought of how many guests may have seen expired product on our shelves.

I appreciate everyone's responses
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I once nearly bought some flavored mayonnaise because it sounded good and was on clearance.
It was expired by a month and a half.
 
We did a smart huddle once on the condiment aisle (SuperT) and filled 4 1/2 carts with expired salad dressing, mayo, pickles, bbq sauce, etc. It was crazy. Stuff hardly gets rotated - they just shove it in the front because the shelves are so tight you can't reach the back to pull the old stuff forward.
 
Today my ETL talked to me about checking out the new report on Workbench that tells how much is being sold and what the profit on it is vs how much is being tossed. If there is a particular item that is not selling, stop ordering it even if it is on planogram. We struggle to sell Kale and are in a center with a healthy grocery chain. Also monitor bakery capacities to see if they are too high. Also ensure the 4-7-7 rule is being applied in the back room. Do not let full cases sit for more than 4 days or partial cases for 7 days.
 
CeeCee said:
We did a smart huddle once on the condiment aisle (SuperT) and filled 4 1/2 carts with expired salad dressing, mayo, pickles, bbq sauce, etc. It was crazy. Stuff hardly gets rotated - they just shove it in the front because the shelves are so tight you can't reach the back to pull the old stuff forward.
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Granola bars is the worst, cart # wise, when it hasn't been gone through in awhile.
 
Redzee said:
I never noticed that they did. I've seen case freight with advanced mold growth. I get it that sxxx happens. Flow does their best. We all struggle w a difficult situation.
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And to clarify, I'm talking about non-produce, fruit, meat, etc. I'm not sure if your case freight includes that. I don't know how the FDC's operate.
 
Related question regarding accounting for tossing things...

What's the difference (in terms of metrics, etc) between 1) salvage, 2) CRC, 3) destroy, 4) donate, 5) QMOS (and does it matter which button to select for QMOS, like outdated/expired/sample)? I just saw some report and it said my store is terrible. I think it was regarding overriding things to destroy. Also we're terrible at some type of markdowns.
 
I started on flow. Speed is a top priority. No time to rotate. I get it, but date wise, it leaves a mess on the shelves. It wasn't until I started plano that I realized the dates only thouroughly get checked when a planogram is reset and its time to push back fill.

We found roughly 10 carts of expired product during the major market reset a few months back.
 
Ugh one time someone at the service desk made an entire pack of Gatorade a toss just because ONE bottle was leaking. I don't know if there's a way to requisition the other bottles or at least donate them but surely there's another option besides putting it in the toss cart?
 
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