bagging

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chas
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bagging

Post by chas »

Do supermarkets teach anyone how to bag groceries any more? The other day the bagger actually put a dozen eggs in the bottom of the bag. Put mangoes, avocados, and bananas on top of them. None of them broke, but really, Oh, my goodness! What in the world???? In the past several weeks I've had apples and cans put on top of a couple of loaves of bread. The bread never recovered, it looked like it had a fjord running down the middle of one loaf. I had one checker who put stuff in the bag with the bag on its side, and put the potato chips on the top, but they were on the side-bottom once the bag was upright. That didn't go well with the bananas sticking into the chips.

I always put my groceries on the belt in the order I think they should go into the bag. Cans first, then heavy fruit, then things like chips, bread, and finally herbs (and repeat if it's more than one bag). They often go out of their way and pick things from up the belt so that they can either put all the heavy stuff into one bag or so that they can put fruit on top of the herbs. There's nothing like a good bunch of cilantro that's been all bruised being between cans and apples.

Okay, rant mode off. I do go through the self-check line whenever possible.
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Re: bagging

Post by Nanohedron »

chas wrote:There's nothing like a good bunch of cilantro that's been all bruised being between cans and apples.
Bruising ain't good enough. Every last sprig should be burnt and their loathsome ashes fired into outer space.

You still get baggers where you live? I'm not sure I'm envious. I don't know a supermarket in the Twin Cities where you don't bag your own whatever kind of checkout you do, and it's been that way for years, now. I think it's supposed to build character or something. The only time we get baggers any more is when some high school is doing a yearly fundraiser or something like that. And I'd rather they NOT help, but just go away. I remember one such fellow who picked up the eggs only to stare blankly at the carton for a while; I think I cleared my throat to reset him. Watching the untrained risk my groceries is too hard on my blood pressure. I'm like, "Stop! No! Stop! Just ... stop. I'll do it myself." I'd add, "Watch and learn," but they don't want to be there, and forlorn hopes aren't my gig. So, yeah. I'd rather bag my own.

Call me fussy.
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Re: bagging

Post by Tor »

No baggers in my European location.. I don't think I've seen any since supermarkets arrived. I remember them from back when you asked everything over the counter.

In Japan they don't bag for you, but it's close.. you just put your basket on the counter (if you need a trolley the basket goes on top of it - the trolleys are just wheeled platforms for baskets). The cashier will pick and scan every item and put the scanned item into another (differently coloured) basket. And put any foodstuff that may need it into a small bag (e.g. minced meat bags, or cold food) before placing it in the out-basket. And they do this very, very fast, and they'll place and arrange the groceries in the new basket so that it's safe (caring for eggs, for example). And if it's something from a fridge they'll add one of those little frozen thingies to keep it cool.

Then you pay, and you bring the out-basket (by trolley, if necessary) to a counter where you'll move the grocieres over to a proper bag by yourself. Finally, you bring that now empty basket to its storing place (usually just by the packing counter), put the trolley back to where you took it from if you used one, and leave. Some customers will bring their own bag which fits exactly in the basket. They hand it over to the cashier, the cashier will place the bag in the out-basket before starting the move-from-one-basket-to-the-other-while-scanning process. The customer pays, takes the bag, and the cashier will use the now empty out-basket for the next customer.

And it's double-buffered.. the cashier will use one register for the scanning, reading out the price for every item scanned, while you watch the total going up on the register. When finished, the total is transfered to *another* register closer to the end. While you are counting up the money, or looking for your credit card, or fumbling with the buying points card, the cashier will start with the next customer. When you're finally ready to pay he or she will attend to you. Not as in my European location, where the next customer waits forever because the cashier can't start scanning before the previous customer has paid. If it's very busy then another cashier will run over and take care of the scanning, to save some extra seconds.

And, of course, when you have paid, the Japanese cashier will give you a smile, bow, and say thank you. All in all, very good.
(Everything isn't perfect, of course. There's no scale at the cashiers, so everything is bought by item, not by weight.. get some potatoes, and you pay for each individual potato. Or pre-packed bag of potatoes. Same for fruits and vegetables.)

Image

Edit: Oh, well, image resizing doesn't seem to work in this version of phpBB. The link to a 1280x720 pixel image is here

Update: I found a picture of a customer bag in the output basket. In the picture you can also see the payment register in the bottom right corner, and the scanner register in front of the cashier.
Image
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Re: bagging

Post by chas »

Nanohedron wrote:
chas wrote:There's nothing like a good bunch of cilantro that's been all bruised being between cans and apples.
Bruising ain't good enough. Every last sprig should be burnt and their loathsome ashes fired into outer space.

You still get baggers where you live? I'm not sure I'm envious. I don't know a supermarket in the Twin Cities where you don't bag your own whatever kind of checkout you do, and it's been that way for years, now.
I used cilantro as an example because it's much more delicate than basil, parsley, etc. How the hell do you make salsa without it? No salsa is complete without it. Might be okay without cilantro if it's above 1000 on the Scoville scale.

It's certainly moving in that direction in the mid-Atlantic. Our local supermarket chain is now owned by a Dutch multi-national. They've re-configured the checkout lines. It had been that they had a removable conveyor between the checker and the bagging area. When removed, there was a bagging area right at the checker, so that s/he could bag the groceries on the fly. Now the conveyor isn't removable, so the checker can't bag on the fly. Enough people bag their own that I actually talked to someone at the store, who told me the checkers are expected to bag the groceries. There's often a bagger who splits time between two lines, so sometimes the checker doesn't realize s/he needs to bag.

I think it's inefficient to have the customer bagging, especially when one needs to leave his card in the chip reader, and the distraction of bagging might lead to ones card being left behind.
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Re: bagging

Post by Nanohedron »

chas wrote:How the hell do you make salsa without it? No salsa is complete without it.
You know, I used to eat a lot of salsa but over the years I ended up losing my enthusiasm for it. Maybe cilantro's the reason why. :wink:
chas wrote:I think it's inefficient to have the customer bagging, especially when one needs to leave his card in the chip reader, and the distraction of bagging might lead to ones card being left behind.
In our local supermarket setups your goods are scanned and sent off along a conveyor to collect at the end where you go to bag your stuff. A prevalent standard now is that these conveyors are twin, so a customer will be at the end of one conveyor bagging their already-bought pile of groceries, while the next shopper is completing their transaction and their stuff trundles down the other conveyor to be bagged shortly, back and forth. These out-conveyors are maybe about 8 feet long, which gives extra space to accommodate the supershoppers, or others' purchases should one's bagging take time and the extra room is needed so things can move along at the cashier's end. Cuts down on gridlock reasonably well that way.

Here's a basic idea of the setup:

Image

Apparently the general design is called a tri-belt lane in the industry. Running from left to right, a single conveyor brings your stuff to the cashier (where there is also a built-in scale, should it be needed), and the far end of the twin conveyors is where the bagging happens. Locally, however, the twin egress conveyors are usually about twice as long, maybe more, as in the pic; the reasons for that I gave above. That'll give you an idea of the supermarket checkout lanes hereabouts.

Some people flying solo do bag while the cashier is finishing their transaction, but it's not the norm here, and conveyor length certainly discourages that for me: I'd feel like an eedjit, flying 8 feet back and forth between bagging and cashier stuff. I see it as more important not to hold up the cashier, so when on my own, I finish my transaction in full first; then off I go to do the bagging. The system's set up to be approached that way, really.
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Re: bagging

Post by chas »

Interesting, Nano. Unfortunately, the established stores around here don't have the space to make the lines you describe. Plus, I think it might take awhile for the notoriously impatient and untrusting East-coasters to adopt to something like that.
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Re: bagging

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chas wrote:I think it might take awhile for the notoriously impatient and untrusting East-coasters to adopt to something like that.
I can assure you that the impatient would find the setup refreshingly efficient (if you don't mind bagging your own), with their trust gained thereby. Lack of space, however, is of course the deal-breaker.
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Re: bagging

Post by benhall.1 »

Nanohedron, re cilantro wrote:Bruising ain't good enough. Every last sprig should be burnt and their loathsome ashes fired into outer space.
I'm aware of your aversion. But I've never understood it. We try and have a pot growing in the house every year - all year if we can manage it, which we sometimes can. We use it as a garnish, as it's often used, but there's one dish in particular which positively needs it: lemon chicken. Deb makes preserved lemons using a middle eastern recipe. Then I cook the dish in a tagine. Ingredients are chicken breasts, onions, garlic, fresh ginger, green olives, white wine, preserved lemons (1/4 of a lemon per chicken breast) ras el hanout, saffron strands, parsley and fresh coriander leaves (cilantro to Americans) plus a bit of salt and pepper. chuck it all in together, bung it in the oven and eat it 1 hour later with bulgar. One of the most heavenly dishes known to man. :D

Thread drift of course ... I know nothing of bagging ... is it a weekend pursuit?
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Re: bagging

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chas wrote:especially when one needs to leave his card in the chip reader, and the distraction of bagging might lead to ones card being left behind.
At our local supermarket the till won't print the receipt until the card is removed. To start with the cashier had to ask, which was less trouble than chasing us into the car park, but we soon became trained. We never got the idea of the double conveyor though and the far one now has promotion notices and charity collection boxes.
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Re: bagging

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benhall.1 wrote:
Nanohedron, re cilantro wrote:Bruising ain't good enough. Every last sprig should be burnt and their loathsome ashes fired into outer space.
I'm aware of your aversion. But I've never understood it.
I'm one of that bunch for whom cilantro tastes like soap. It's genetic, so I have no other point of reference. If you don't have this same genetic expression, cilantro will instead taste good to you. Or so they say.
benhall.1 wrote:Thread drift of course ... I know nothing of bagging ... is it a weekend pursuit?
You know nothing of bagging groceries? You must have servants.
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Re: bagging

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david_h wrote:We never got the idea of the double conveyor though and the far one now has promotion notices and charity collection boxes.
It could be that they're not needed in your locale. Supermarkets in the Twin Cities routinely have peak periods that are unbelievably jammed with shoppers, so the dual conveyor system was adopted to alleviate the human deluge by moving things along better. Me, I just shop at times when there are going to be fewer people, but not everyone has that option.
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Re: bagging

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Nanohedron wrote:
david_h wrote:We never got the idea of the double conveyor though and the far one now has promotion notices and charity collection boxes.
It could be that they're not needed in your locale. Supermarkets in the Twin Cities routinely have peak periods that are unbelievably jammed with shoppers, so the dual conveyor system was adopted to alleviate the human deluge by moving things along better. Me, I just shop at times when there are going to be fewer people, but not everyone has that option.
If I ever shop in a supermarket - and I believe the last time I did so personally was some time in the Spring of 2014 - I always line things up on the conveyor belt (is that what the ordinary folk call them? :wink: ), as symmetrically as I possibly can and in as artistic a fashion as possible to create an overall aesthetically pleasing image. It can take some while. Strangely, though, my artistic efforts with regards to these things don't seem to be universally appreciated. Some even cluck. :o
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Re: bagging

Post by david_h »

benhall.1 wrote:... in as artistic a fashion as possible to create an overall aesthetically pleasing image ...
Even if the most artistic arrangement would have the eggs coming off the belt (adjective - redundant within the context -may often be "moving") first and the potatoes last? I make an effort to put multiple items together to help the person on the checkout :smug:
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Re: bagging

Post by Nanohedron »

benhall.1 wrote:If I ever shop in a supermarket - and I believe the last time I did so personally was some time in the Spring of 2014 - I always line things up on the conveyor belt (is that what the ordinary folk call them? :wink: ), as symmetrically as I possibly can and in as artistic a fashion as possible to create an overall aesthetically pleasing image. It can take some while. Strangely, though, my artistic efforts with regards to these things don't seem to be universally appreciated. Some even cluck. :o
What an odd notion. What would be the purpose of a conveyor belt if it's sitting idle? I suspect, Ben, that the last time you were at a supermarket was ... never. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I would prefer a cozy local grocer to a supermarket any day, but I'd probably have to go well out of my way and outside the Metro Area just for the pleasure. That's urban blight for you. I have to work with the cards I've been dealt.

The egress belts on the checkout lanes I've been describing are always moving until items reach an electronic eye at the end. At that point, either the cashier or the bagging shopper can activate the belt to bring items further along to the end. And by the way, the cashier, not you, puts the items onto the egress belt while you're fiddling with your card or other means of exchange. I'm afraid your dreams of artistic intrusion would sadly have to remain just that: Dreams.
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Re: bagging

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Nanohedron wrote:The egress belts on the checkout lanes I've been describing are always moving until items reach an electronic eye at the end.
Exactly. I always put the little divider thingie they provide right next to the eye, so I have plenty of time for arranging my items. :D
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