APPARENTLY the National Grocers Association is ashame of their meat cutters or don't read Supermart News

Underscoring service in the supermarket meat department pays off. Meat cutters, newly nudged into the limelight — and often newly trained to engage customers — Offer a benefit that keeps meat sales growing even in the face of rising prices, retailers said.They see the service meat department as an information center, and the ultimate place to seal customer loyalty. Some also said it's a great place to sell customers up, and promote across departments.

supermarketnews.com/meat/spotlight-service

 

Hopefully the National Grocers Association will soon reconize the value of their meat cutters and give them a chance at $10,000.00

I can agree that a bagger is important to the attitude and perception of a store. However, it is the meat shop and cutters that are the backbone.

Perception is reality, "bagging" is easily graded/measured,

I use to ask my meat supervisors, why there wasn't meatcutting competitions within the company-he said, "because we work with sharp knives, and if someone got hurt, then someone could be sue'd"

Texas roadhouse has a competition, but they also have the measures in place., it's there own measures, but nonetheless measures


I think if we wanted some sort of meatcutting competition, it Has to be more on merchandising, and speed, or combination of both
say there was five cutting stations, and a primal on each station,
the grading would (should ) cover
1. competency of the cutting (no wedges)
2. how many different cuts from the primal within alotted time
3 cutting yield test result
4. Packaging/presentation of finished product


it's one thing cutting in the comfort of your own place everyday, quite another to cut in front of a video camera or in front of a few hundred people.

with technology today, we could actually have a friendly competition right here
for example, if we could video how to cut and merchandise primals - upload them to youtube, and share the link on here- we then could vote for who we all like best

we'd all learn a few things in the process


this would be good to have as a resource on here, like a member library of cutting videos


just a thought....................

I think most of you here know that i'm quite vocal when it comes to how meat cutters get the short of of the stick and some times I say things maybe I shouldn't lol.

I had posted this on NGA face book page in reply to the first post above.

APPARENTLY the National Grocers Association is ashamed of their meat cutters or don't read Super mart News

Underscoring service in the supermarket meat department pays off. Meat cutters, newly nudged into the limelight — and often newly trained to engage customers — Offer a benefit that keeps meat sales growing even in the face of rising prices, retailers said. They see the service meat department as an information center, and the ultimate place to seal customer loyalty. Some also said it's a great place to sell customers up, and promote across departments.

supermarketnews.com/meat/spotlight-service

 Hopefully the National Grocers Association will soon recognize the value of their meat cutters and give them a chance at $10,000.00

 I got a reply to it yesterday morning from a lady there telling me that that she wanted to talk to me or e-mail me. I send her a e-mail explaining why I made the statement and that I thought NGA should give their meat cutters a shot at it. I told her I was open to a phone call if she wanted to talk. I didn't hear anything from her. So this afternoon I wrote her a long e-mail about the subject. I got a reply that she had been very busy and was sorry she hadn't got back to me. wanted to set a time for Monday or Tuesday to talk about a meat cutting competition, she likes the ideal, excited about it and wants to bring in one of the Meat Association on it and THANK goodness it's not beef check off  lol  So I'll get back as soon as I talk with her and give a update on what might take place.

They should have a competition, those things drew big crowds for whole Foods and a few more I've seen on youtube. the news channels carry them as news spots free. you can't beat that advertising cost.

 

-- Edited by Master_Meat_Sawman on Friday 5th of October 2012 02:02:32 PM

Their BS line with this is, "This competition continues to shine a light on the incredible dedication and work ethic of grocery employees, particularly baggers, from all across the country" 

MOST of the time in my store when you need a bagger they hid in the back room. we  had two get in this competition, never go far but manager had to fire one because he thought he didn't have to do anything because he was special because of the competition.

As far as them doing anything for our meat cutters that is a joke.

This would be a good shot for the Independents to show up the chains and support their meat cutters. An your right about the free advertising. Their web site says, " Independent grocers will find the solutions to tackle their most challenging business issues while improving productivity in all key areas of operations " This would be a good way to handle their problem of finding good meat cutters as it would spark interest in the trade, give them better qualified people to train and get off a lot of the drunks, druggies and rejects from the chains. But on the other hand they don't have to pay the drunks, druggies and rejects from the chains a good wage. If I'm not mistaken I think they have about 5000 stores, at a small number that could be around 10,000 meat cutters at two to a store, I've been in some of their stores that had 3 and 4 cutters, from the story cowboy had on the message board the usa is around 5000 cutters short, it would make sense for them to promote a meat cutter contest so they could train their own instead of taking the drunks, druggies and rejects.

 They do drew a crowd if you promote them, check out this crowd

http://youtu.be/8nRAwRcCld4

 

-- Edited by Bill_meatcutter on Sunday 7th of October 2012 08:39:32 PM

  I've read how Good Independent markets and old time butcher shops are making a comeback, consumers are tired of poor service, they are fed up with major chain store meat department crap. A local-full service butcher shop is usually where you see the greatest combination of meat cutting skills so to me it doesn't make sense to not promote their meat cutters.

A few months ago, I was at a "bagging" competition it was at the mgm grand at foxwoods......now they had a preview the night before in the theatre, in front of 100's of people,,,,we were in the chairs with drinks..... these bagging "contestents" werent quite nervous with everyone staring at them...

but I was also thinking how could this be a meatcutting competition??

the bagger "guidelines" were clear, easy to measure

meatcutter competitions,,,I would love to see- since most of us are on production measures/schedules, we'd want to to measure productivity-.....but then,,,,someone cuts themself, and bleeds, needs stitches, the organizers go nuts over this,,

how would you measure a meatcutter competition??

would you, randomly have three primals per meatcutter and have a certain amount of time to process all three- then place the weights/retails in a computer program cutting yield test?? giving consistent cost/retails, and or sale items

then grade on profit merchandising of fall out cuts?? presentation, eye appeal??