2022: Here’s to a Clean Beginning
If you have time to lean…
Wait a second. Who has time to lean? Or anything else for that matter. This cleaning cliché is as old a management maxim as they come. And yet. Well, cleaning is important in any retail operation. Especially in the produce aisle.
The first of the year often included at least one informal management resolution to head into the first quarter with a let’s-clean-this-place-up attitude, yes? And rightfully so. It’s always good to steer a store and the departments within, in this direction.
It seems the first of the year also attracted the corporate higher-ups, as well.
I remember the scene going something like this. “We have a district manager meeting in two weeks,” the store manager announced in an early January, Monday meeting. “You can bet we can expect Vice President Mr. White Glove to pop in that day, too. We haven’t a day to lose. We need to get the store in tip-top shape.”
This was followed by the collective groan by not only the rank and file, but the department heads as well.
If there was any legitimate gripes heard following this news by the clerks, it was twofold: First, we should always spend a little extra for a tip-top, sparkling clean store. Second, we should be cleaning, not for the ‘suits’ (as they were popularly called), but for our customers – who actually shopped our store and put money in the till.
The company executives? Never did see one grab a shopping cart for this reason.
Oh, it isn’t like supermarkets don’t already strive to keep things cleaned. Most do a good job. In the stores I helped manage, we took pride in maintaining high standards. What the first-quarter big-shot meetings spurred was what my sweet, better half refers to as “Deep cleaning.”
Whenever I hear that term at home, I know that whatever Saturday plans I had made, are no longer so.
Often, the deep cleaning in retail is for the same reason. We’ve gotten off track and especially a priority when coupled with company on the way. Rats. However, it’s to be expected. And this extends to the produce aisle and entire store as well. After all, whenever company arrives, we want the place; home, or work, to be as nice as possible, don’t we? Our goal was (to use another cliché) meet and exceed expectations.
Deep cleaning in the produce aisle for us? It really wasn’t that much longer of a list.
We already scrubbed the entire wet rack every week, and each of the tables got deep-cleaned once per quarter. Every display was cleaned with every stocking, or at least daily. Other daily chores included wiping down the chrome, the mirrors, the scale pans, table bases – you name it, it was on the sanitation list at least once a week. So, the ‘deep clean’ might only include scrubbing a cooler, or the top of the wet racks, getting rid of any unsightly debris, tackling minor repairs – things not normally on the daily or weekly to-do list.
Meanwhile, everyone else in the store was going crazy, trying to catch up.
The biggest winners in any great cleanup effort are of course, customers. And more. If a clean ship is a happy ship, this translates into employees that take a little more pride in their work, impressed customers who naturally shop the produce department and the entire store a little longer and fill the cart a little more. It’s added sales and gross profits.
That’s cleaning up, no matter how you measure it.
Armand Lobato works for the Idaho Potato Commission. His 40 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions.
