Archived Gum and candy routines

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What are your routines around gum and candy to be sure it's FIFOed and culled every now and then. I've been on a serious culling binge the past couple of weeks, and found some Breathsavers Duos that expired in July. Of 2009. My LOD that night didn't even believe me...I had to show him from another package that that was the best buy date, and not the born on date. Clearly we have zero routine about this, and before I bring this up to my GSTL, I would love to hear how other stores deal with this.
 
Freshness Fridays are a great way to help this problem. Have it earlier in the day so that the checklanes are not busy with guests and have 1-2 people per lane. Also, make sure that you have a PDA with you so that someone can enter dates into the SDA.

I also partner with our GSTL's to have cashiers check dates instead of standing around waiting for guests.
 
I just pulled several cases of Doritos from the Snack Aisle in back that expired in August of 2011.....been through 3 inventories.....happened to catch the purge date a few days ago....
 
I pulled a bunch of chips out of the saver spot area that had expired in July 2013 a couple of weeks ago. Considering that stuff rotates on a monthly basis, that means they were expired when they were put there.

:facepalm: (we need him back)
 
My store is horrible about this. I've found about a dozen Toblerones that expired in like 2007. In October 2013. After a guest told me.

Yes, seriously.
 
Depending on my former stores, we did either Freshness Fridays (for my bigger stores) or the GSTL/GSAs & cashiers would all check all the candy.

Some of the stuff can be hard to read because its manufacturer codes, and not sale by dates.

On the way I did it was I checked the front and then the back candies of each box or location. That pretty tells you if its been FIFO.

Some of my GSTLs/GSAs just checked the dates on the box or first candies, if it was close or past date, then we defected it all.
 
I remember doing a Freshness Friday and working the candy aisle.
There were boxes of M&Ms in the theatre section that had dropped down and stacked up.
People just kept pushing on top of them.
When we finally cleared them all out, we found ones from 2009.
 
I enlisted the help of the GSTLS with candy at the lanes. We had 24 lanes. Each week of the month she would make sure 6 of the lanes were checked. The GSTL would put items in the SDA along with another cashier. It took a couple of rotations to get the lanes in shape. But after the initial on boarding of the idea, it went pretty smooth. Also the night before the candy order came in, the cashiers would fill the candy from the least used lanes. When the new candy was stocked it filled the now empty slower lanes. Print out copies of the date codes for GSTLs f0r coded product. Freshness really is all about partnerships. There is no way one person can make sure everything in the store is rotated and fresh. The biggest thing is to make sure you recognize the extra effort everyone is putting in. But like I said,once the routines are in place it really takes very little time
 
We do it at the beginning of every month! We have a set of word documents that we print at the start of a new month... basically each check lane has a sheet of paper with a place to initial for every shelf on a candy/gum pog. After a cashier finishes a shelf on a check lane, they initial off.

Example: A checklane has 5 rows of candy, it would look something like this if I had gotten shelves 1 and 2 done and @Retail Girl did shelves 3 and 4.

CL: __14___
MONTH: _Feb___

Shelf 1: Paidtosmile
Shelf 2: Paidtosmile
Shelf 3: Retail Girl
Shelf 4:Retail Girl
Shelf 5:______

I'm the GSA, er.... was the GSA, that followed up on these and ensured every check lane got done within the first week of a month. If there were any issues with TM's (i.e.: one team member doing all the check lanes with no support from his/her peers) I'd pass that along to the GSTL. Otherwise, once everything is complete, I just toss the completed sheets.

Anything expired is pulled, anything within a month of expiration we log on the PDA as a short-date.

Edit* This is something my GE picked up from another store. I don't take credit for this idea in any way shape or form.
 
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We don't really have a routine at my store. After market finishes their portion of the McLane delivery, they send us the red totes, and whichever cashier doesn't feel like cashing pushes the gum and candy. Since the majority of our cashiers are not sales floor-trained and only one of my GSTLs really cares, the gum and candy are rarely FIFO'd while being pushed. Once in a while, the GSTL who cares pulls me and another cashier (if it's quiet enough at the lanes) to cull and FIFO everything. I don't think the GSTLs and GSAs use the SDA; the front end items only get SDA attention from the PAs.

I like the ideas that tellmeaboutatime and paidtosmile posted. If you keep track of which lanes get culled and FIFO'd and when, then you know that it was done.
 
I like that idea, and may institute something like that. I talked to my GSTL tonight. When I suggested we needed to get into some sort of routine for it, he said that it was likely going to be mine. Alrighty then.

So, I was FIFOing the heck out of the lanes in my spare time tonight. I did check lane 1, and that was fine. I went to do check lane 2 and discovered some Altoids that went out of date last week. The problem is, we were dead a couple of weeks ago due to the weather, and I had started doing a light cull then, and I know for a fact I put those Altoids in SDA. I talked to the GSTL about that, and it sounds like the SrTL for flow, who is supposed to own SDA completely bypassed it. My putting it in SDA isn't going to do any good if it gets ignored when the date hits. The GSTL said he would follow up with the other TL about it...but I'm going to keep an eye on some of the stuff I have put in SDA. In a couple of weeks, if it's still there, then I'll really know there is a problem and will be talking to anyone who will listen.
 
We used to backstock that stuff, but now we keep it up at the checklanes. Anyone else do that?
 
For all the complicated manufacturer codes, keep a cheat sheet on how to decipher each code. And permanent marker the dates on the side or bottom.
 
i have a routine of checking the items that are on the backroom detail report. if they have been sto'd for more than 6 months ( underlined on the report) i pull and check the date. great way to find vendor items that should not be there as well. it is a great routine and very easy to keep up with.
 
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