Walmart Memo Orders Stores to Improve Grocery Performance

[KingCharlemagne]

Source: New York Times

The dairy section in the Walmart supercenter here, just across the border from Queens, was sparsely stocked. Some gallon jugs of milk were dented, others soiled with what looked like dirt. The meat aisle had run out of ground beef patties and strip steak, and residue streaked some shelves.

The disarray and out-of-stock items at just one store appear to be examples of wider problems that Walmart is pressing store managers to address.

Last month, the retailer issued an “urgent agenda” memo to managers across the country pushing them to improve performance on “Chilled and Fresh” items in its dairy, meat and produce departments, part of an effort by Walmart to stem long-sluggish sales. It also reflected customer complaints that Walmart has received in recent years as it has expanded offerings of organic foods and produce, often at cheaper prices than its competitors.

The memo, marked “highly sensitive,” tells Walmart marketing managers to make sure that the company’s 4,965 United States stores discount aging meat and baked goods to maximize the chance that those items will sell before their expiration dates. The memo — leaked for public use by a Walmart manager unhappy about understaffing — also tells stores to be sure to “rotate” dairy products and eggs, which means removing expired items and adding new stock at the bottom and back of display cases.

~More at link~



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/business/walmart-memo-orders-stores-to-improve-grocery-performance.html

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Anyone who feels compelled by circumstance to shop for groceries at MallWart should check expiration dates on perishables very carefully, as some store managers may 'overlearn' the lesson of that 'urgent memo.' The pics that accompany this article tell quite a story themselves.

The six heirs to the Walton family fortune control as much wealth between them as the bottom 48 million Americans combined.

[femmocrat]

1. "Understaffing" seems to add to the problems:

From the same article:

Some retail analysts say these problems stem from Walmart’s failure to have enough employees in its stores to do the many chores needed, like marking down aging items, rotating milk or getting needed goods from the back room to stock shelves.

“Labor hours have been cut so thin, that they don’t have the people to do many activities,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant. “The fact that they don’t do some of these things every day, every shift, shows what a complete breakdown Walmart has in staffing and training.”

Their produce sux.

[KingCharlemagne]

2. Thanks for the additional paragraphs. I felt torn between what to copy and what to

snip. But, yeah, their staffing practices have clearly compounded the problem. I have some friends who live in western KS and, apparently, WalMart is the only place within reasonable driving distance for them to shop. That is really sad.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Wal-Mart is often the only affordable place to shop.

There is a Wal-mart in most rural counties where I live, the only real competition is one grocery store and Dollar type stores.
There IS often a Winn Dixie in the same town, but there prices are quite a bit higher.

Luckily, my lil town also has a large produce store, with decent prices.

[hlthe2b]

3. I was horrified to find employees putting frozen items that had been left out in abandoned carts

back into the freezers and dripping meats back into the refrigerated displays. I asked two of them about it (one young, one decidedly not) and neither appeared to grasp what the problem was. I, of course reported it to the manager.

This was some time ago, since I don't shop there. I'd gone to a newer store to try to find something my nearby grocery stores no longer carried.

None of this surprises me. They don't train and not all their employees are adequately educated. And then there is the management problem, trying to shave losses.

[KingCharlemagne]

4. Thanks for the supplemental documentation of this article's allegations. Although I grew up

very close to where WM got its start, I have NEVER been inside one (probably b/c I moved to the cities as WM was starting to expand its national presence). So I only know about them from what I read and hear, very little of it positive.

[PatrynXX]

5. Target and Walmart are on my dislike list

but Walmart must treat the employees way worse.

never can find anything there.

although the grocery area is usually okay. still compared to HyVee , Aldi's and Fareway (Target too but $$$$) they don't have anything

course they are a joke in electronics too. compared to Target. Aisles of blu ray at target. Walmart? I'm not spending $5 on a dvd which converts to Vudu SD. now $5 for a BD that converts to Vudu HDX sure. If I wanna look at a printer even if it's a fake non working printer. still gotta go to Target. Walmart has them in boxes O_O. That area is usually a chaotic mess

[KingCharlemagne]

7. I will buy non-perishables at Target (pasta, chips and crackers, canned goods), but

never dairy, meat or fresh produce, for the same reasons laid out in this article about WM.

Target consistently beats our 3 LA food chains on prices of most of these non-perishables.

Never bought electronics at Target, mainly b/c BestBuy is right beneath it in the Mall and at least at BB, the sales staff seem to understand their product lines and can advocate for them intelligently.

[Renew Deal]

6. Gross

There is an expanded Target in the same shopping center as that Walmart. Target heavily renovated their "grocery." I'm sure it is cleaning their clock. It sounds like Walmart doesn't know how to run a supermarket.

That Walmart is where a holiday shopper was stampeded to death a few years ago. The Target in that lot is where there was a union vote a few years ago.

[KingCharlemagne]

9. The fresh food, dairy and meat sections of our Target are pretty pathetic, but I've

never seen anything quite as bad as what is depicted in the photos and text about this WM. The whole article is worth a read, imo, b/c it explains how WM's chronic understaffing has contributed mightily to the problem.

[Divernan]

10. Analyst: Walmart understaffed to tune of 200,000 employees.

In an investment analysts’ report last month, Wolfe Research said “if its employees’ growth had kept up with square footage growth in the U.S. over a number of years,” Walmart would have 200,000 more employees. Walmart has 1.3 million American workers.

[KingCharlemagne]

11. Again, many thanks for bringing additional text in. I wanted to make sure none of

our DU brothers and sisters unwittingly sickened themselves from food poisoning b/c of WM's shoddy practices, hence my decision to copy the 4 paragraphs I did.

But, yeah, the 'why' for these stories is often as important or more important than the 'who' and 'what'.

[arcane1]

26. When you can't continue growing by building more stores, gotta "grow" somewhere.

Where better than payroll?

[L0oniX]

12. Walmart supercenter = third world food source.

I call it the Stupor Center because they never keep the shelves stocked. It's like they watch me to see what I buy and then make sure they run out of it and not restock it for weeks.

[KingCharlemagne]

19. I can see you're channeling your inner Joseph Heller (Catch 22), paticularly

Milo Minderbinder's efforts to market chocolate-covered Egyptian cotton to the Syndicate

[Doctor Who]

36. LO, that bug avatar gets me every time. NT

[RobinA]

37. My WalMart

is understocked across the board, less so in grocery than in other sections. The grocery is actually rather nicely done and every bit as clean and kept up as any grocery store in the area. I don't shop there because they don't have the selection I like, but when I do run to that section to grap something I've never had a problem.

That said, every store I shop in, every business I frequent, shows the signs of not enough staff. Sad, really.

[Xithras]

13. When our local Walmart started selling groceries....

...they initially hired a handful of people with grocery store experience to run the whole thing. A friend of my wife was among them, and they were paid several dollars an hour more than the rest of the employees.

Three months after the groceries went on sale, they were laid off as a group. They weren't "cost effective" and were simply hired to keep things pretty and organized while people were introduced to the new grocery section. Once they had convinced everyone that they could run a grocery store properly, they laid the staff off and handed it over to their minimum wage stockers.

She told us to NEVER buy food from WalMart. Normal grocery stores build a certain loss margin into their budget, realizing that some food will expire on the shelves, spoil, or be compromised and unsafe to sell. The Walmart managers refused to accept this and DEMANDED that everything be sold. Expired food, frozen food that had been taken out of the food department and thawed, food that had been SOLD AND RETURNED, even food that had been opened by other customers if the packaging could be resealed. Unless the packaging was damaged, everything was considered "sellable".

[wolfie001]

14. Hello Duers! Please shop Union grocery stores! Thanx!

[Sherman A1]

29. +1000

[alarimer]

31. Many of do not have that option

I have a choice of stores here, but none of them are union, as far as I know. For sure I am not going miles out of my way to find one that is.

[awoke_in_2003]

34. Would love to...

name one in the DFW area.

on edit: I never shop at walmart. I will do Kroger and Albertsons. I need to check out Winn Dixie's latest iteration (WinCo)

[sir pball]

15. The WallyWorld deli I worked in was absolutely Nazi about cleanliness and product maintenance

I still tell people that in twenty years of foodservice, it's by far the cleanest safest place I've ever seen. All food contact surfaces washed/rinsed/sanitized at most every four hours, usually two; all cold-case products dated and disposed after seven days; hands washed and gloves changed between EVERY customer; all products hot and cold temped every two hours; the entire department was literally sprayed with soap and sanitizer at the end of the night.

Yes, when the chickens were four hours old (6-hour shelf life assuming a safe temp) they were discounted, and meats that were more than four days old were also put on sale, but that's not a health hazard by any means. Can't speak for other stores though, but I'd cheerfully eat anything from the Waterville store.

[KingCharlemagne]

17. How long ago was it that you worked there? - nt

[sir pball]

27. 2009.

I suspect it had a lot to do with several of the managers bring utterly by-the-book, to the point that regional HR actually had to tell them to flex a little on several occasions. Still, it was a very well run operation from a cleanliness/risk management standpoint.

[KingCharlemagne]

28. Except for a stint in food service back in college in the early 80s, I have not

had much to do with food preparation or storage in a commercial setting since. It's good to hear that some of the WM facilities are meeting or exceeding food safety regs. Problem, I suppose, is knowing which ones you can trust (and vice versa).

[wolfie001]

45. Hard to believe the exceptional standards.

Last edited Fri Nov 14, 2014, 06:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Especially since most employees are below $10/hr part-time. Sounds fishy. Nice promotion for Wakmart though.

[wolfie001]

46. Sorry, meant for sir pball....nt

[greatlaurel]

16. Sam's heirs have surrounded themselves with sycophants to tell them want they want to hear.

Walmart will be out of business sooner than later. Their business practices are not just stupid, but unsustainable. The profits from stores located in rural areas no other company wants to service are not enough to sustain the business. Anyone who can travel for shopping are already doing that to get away from the filthy Walmarts. The Walmart stores in this area are all looking very dirty, very little stock and in disarray and the employees all look ill.

I give them 10 years max. My stock tip is to unload Walmart stock if you have any asap. It is not going to get any better for Walmart. The heirs only understand taking more money from their employees.

Costco irritates me, as well. The only Costco stores are more than an a three hour round trip from here and were built in affluent suburbs. That is wonderful for those folks who live in affluent areas, but here in Appalachian Ohio we desperately need a store that sells decent merchandise and provides a living wage. They could stick one in say Athens, Ohio and they would make a ton of money. People are desperate for jobs and decently priced merchandise. Athens is a college town, too, so they would have lots of parents looking for things college students need all the time. They do not have any locations in West Virginia, either, from what I could tell from their web site.

[KingCharlemagne]

21. CostCo has a reputation for being pretty labor- and progressive-friendly. (Not sure if

that rep's deserved, just know what I read.) Have you tried contacting CostCo Corporate to see about the possibilities of opening a store in your area? Heck you might even be able to land a cool gig yourself, if you're inclined to retail. Just a thought.

[greatlaurel]

35. Yes, Costco does have a reputation as a good employer, which is desperately needed in Appalachia.

If I called them, they would think I was a redneck nut, which of course I am. Good idea. You would think our fabulous JobsOhio would be doing that sort of thing.

[yellowcanine]

18. May have something to do with "outsourcing" some of the stocking of shelves.....

Many big chains outsource shelf stocking to vendors - dairy is one section which this is often done. What can happen is that basically no one takes responsibility for the actual area - the vendor figures he has done his job by getting the product onto the shelf and the store employees figure that the area isn't their responsibility - the vendor is in charge of that area. Not saying this is happening here but it would not surprise me if this were not part of it.

[KingCharlemagne]

22. Hmm, that's interesting. As you can probably guess, I know very little about the

world of brick-n-mortar retail. Probably the retailer suffers the bigger PR hit and hit to sales, I'm guessing, and not the vendor. But that's a guess on my part.

[yellowcanine]

24. It can be a big issue at garden centers

The employees don't water the plants from the vendor in a timely way and of course they look like crap. I have seen this at Home Depot - to the point that some vendors have their own employees there just to keep the plants watered.

[KingCharlemagne]

25. Good to know. Although I grew up on a farm, my thumbs are about as far

from green as it's possible to get. My wife buys most of our plants from a locally-owned garden center out here. (We can't buy many, b/c a lot of indoor plants are toxic to cats.)

[ProfessorGAC]

30. My Dad Was A Wholesale Milkman

Yeah, i'm literally the Milkman's kid.

He regularly stocked, or at least rotated the stock, before he filled the coolers.

But, i don't know that he ever experienced anybody who wasn't a store employee that was responsible for stocking the shelves in the other 16 to 18 hours a day he wasn't in on of the stores to which he delivered. (He delivered to an independent chain in the south suburbs of Chicago.)

[Runningdawg]

20. Walmarts in OK are the most likely place to get shot

we've had prostitution rings operating in the stores and even people stealing supplies and cooking their meth IN the store. Several years ago,my last 2 visits to a walmart grocery store was to redeem gift cards. On the first visit there was a cloud of gnats hanging over the onion bin. The onions themselves were mush. I reported it to the produce manager, the store manager and sent the home office a letter and picture. The 2nd visit, under the same circumstances a few months later, I found worms crawling through the potatoes. I reported it AGAIN, this time also to the health dept.
I dusted off the HS Spanish and started shopping at a locally owned mom and pop Hispanic mkt. I had forgotten that food stores weren't supposed to smell like a nursing home.

[KingCharlemagne]

23. Nice anecdotes. I have taken to buying most of my fresh produce, meat, fish and

dairy at a relatively new 'organic\health food' store called Sprouts. The quality of their offerings far surpasses that of the big 3 chains out here in Los Angeles and they're surprisingly competitive on prices also. I think Sprouts is taking a run at Whole Foods and Trader Joes market niches but I'm not sure.

[Runningdawg]

32. Tulsa just got it's first Sprouts

We've shopped there a couple of times. It is a nice store, the produce is great. The problem, at least with our store, is other than the fancy stuff, they have a meat case the size of my refrigerator and it's nearly always empty by the time we get there.

[onecent]

33. Hell the produce department in our Walmart looks

like the throw away bins at the Price Chopper and Hyvee Stores. I wouldn't buy
walmarts produce if they gave it away....
Are the nuts? I figured they used the produce departent for WRITE OFF. FUCK THEM

[RobinA]

38. It Must Be Local

My WalMart has decent produce very well presented. They tend to focus more on the less perishable stuff, but they do have some things that you can't find in local grocery stores. We are an area that has not had WalMart until maybe the last 10 years and we got grocery only within the past five. They do seem to be making an effort to show shoppers that they CAN do grocery, although the selection is not always that of a dedicated grocery. Maybe that's why we don't have dirty, aging WalMarts. The stores aren't yet aging. The biggest problem these days is WAY not enough open cashiers. Not to mention those flimsy-ass bags they use and that horrid round carosel they bag your stuff in. I swear they WANT you to forget items.

[snooper2]

39. Did you know that King Charlemagne helped develop the first version of spam?

[Orsino]

40. Unfunded mandates always turn out well. n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

41. Not following. Care to elaborate? - nt

[Orsino]

42. Wal-Marts are not generally staffed for pretty as well as cheap.

Bentonville always demands more for less. In this case, it's more for nothing.

[KingCharlemagne]

43. Ah, I think I understand the 'unfunded mandate' phraseology now. Thanks

for taking the time to clarify!

[Darb]

44. Management wants more stock rotation, more

this and more that, but strictly states they do not want to increase employment or labor costs. So, they are basically saying, work harder and faster.

The billionaires gotta eat dontcha know?