verylittlehelps

Honest votes please.

it's not a new thing,I have worked for the company over 30 years,and it has always happened in every store I have worked in

It is not even just a Tesco thing, I have worked for several retailers over the years and all of them have had issues around cold chain, years ago I worked for Iceland, cold chain was hardly ever followed, raised it with store manager reply was "not my concern, my family and I wont be the ones eating it"

Probably an indictment on the Store Manager role as a whole to be fair, cowboys, the lot of them.

This is a daily occurrence.  Your overs cage is left on the shopfloor until its filled.  When mid shift delivery turns up, the chiller is rammed full, so you can't take anything back anyway.  Then you have the fans inside the chiller, turned off while pre-sort is working in there till 5am.  It's not over exagerating to say chilled goods are out of the cold chain for 7 consecutive hours each day.

The volumes on fresh to be worked against stafff hours allowed make it impossible to keep to the cold chain at all, also in some superstores the fresh isles are quite narrow and with fridges either side it is likely to be within the temp range. Just because it is not put back in chiller does not make it against the law , which says the products should be stored at 5 or below.

Tesco rules state 20 min rule, you’ve all signed the training. Rules are not there for you to interpret

Just play their game,Tosco fairy land where utopia rules.......blinkered to the truth.

Quote from: dotnochance on 05-10-20, 09:55AM
Tesco rules state 20 min rule, you’ve all signed the training. Rules are not there for you to interpret

So next time the training comes round, refuse to sign it off, stating that the store is non compliant to training policy...the SM will not be happy, as they have to produce 100% signed off training.

It'd be easy to police. Each person potentially working something in the cold chain gets issued a stop watch that clips on to a cage. When you take the cage out of the chiller/freezer you start the stopclock. When you put it back you stop it and restart the process.

They'd cost pennies for a company like Tesco to buy (about the same as a pair of gloves probably)

For all those that say "but then the staff will just stop the clock/restart it" well yes, but that'd be a conscious act on their part and a identifiable cold chain break done intentionally by a member of staff. Which would mean everyone would start sticking to it.

It's not implemented because Tesco knows that 20 minutes to work a dairy cage as a single person isn't enough.

Tescos Hub should be monitoring this if it's monitoring everything else, if they're not then that would highlight a slight bias to overlooking managerial misconduct (cold chain is something the manager would be accountable for).

Can you imagine if they actually started to police the 20 minute cold chain policy? It'd require far more presorting, far more cages and far more storage space to make it viable. The only other alternative would be to have 2x or 3x the staff working each cage.

Sitting in the canteen a decade ago in the middle of the night, our manager handed out the training sheets and called out the answers so we'd get a great pass rate.
When it came to the cold chain question, he told us to put 20 minutes "but obviously noone takes any notice of that....."

He's still the fresh manager, though in a different store and likely still in charge of the training.

Cold chain? whats that? :D

I CAN HONESTLY SAY NEVER IN MY STORE.WE ARE A EXTRA BUT HAVE STANDARDS

[admin]Welcome to VLH. However please do not post in uppercase in nearly all forums it is bad etiquette as it is considered SHOUTING. The odd word in the right place is OK though. [/admin]

 8-) he's got to shout to ensure he's being HEARD all the way from Devon 8-) ;D

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Quote from: Fixxer on 06-10-20, 01:24PM
Can you imagine if they actually started to police the 20 minute cold chain policy? It'd require far more presorting, far more cages and far more storage space to make it viable. The only other alternative would be to have 2x or 3x the staff working each cage.

If they actually did all that work upfront at the top of the chain can you imagine how much time and despair it would save further down?

Who said I am no a she?? Women rules my lover.

Quote from: surlaroute on 11-10-20, 09:46PM
If they actually did all that work upfront at the top of the chain can you imagine how much time and despair it would save further down?

It'd be a lot quicker for filling yes, but the circumstances in our store mean that even on a quiet day with a small delivery we are generally at reasonably capacity in all the chillers and ambient stock areas for fresh. If it was split down more efficiently and with an aim to protect the cold chain then there wouldn't be any room. Christmas or any other heavier traffic time would be impossible.
Our store was built in the late 80's and even with expansion of the warehouse there's nowhere near enough room.

Stock is expected to be on the shop floor of course so storage will never be a priority, nobody is going to put money and effort into being able to store more things that shouldn't be there. As a result the only way to protect the cold chain has to be to increase the amount of staff working a cage.

Having said that though I shop at a local Morrisons most the time and they seem to typically have 2 or 3 people a time working a cage.

Regularly broken in dot com, from the time an item is picked til the time it gets put back in the fridge or freezer must exceed 20 minutes on nearly every order. Not to mention the times that you come to load your van in the afternoon and you're missing a bunch of chilled trays and they have been sat with the ambient all morning or in the freezer. 9 times out of 10 they will still be loaded to the van and delivered to the customer.

1 We know what we sell day for day being a CFC
2 Our main freezer has known dimensions
3 Christmas is coming
4 So why are we carrying more than we are selling ?
5 Waiting for a Rubber walled freezer to be installed
Been asking time and again Why? If you know your selling 100 bags of chips today why do we have 250 in stock My common sense tells me our freezer should be all but empty day after day

The thing with the cold chain is that the company /mm will stick to it if it suits how many of you have seen the fridge/ freezer full and a delivery turn up which should be turned away but it is not. the person who states about a stop watch on the cage is just a very silly idea and the mm know this these are as you say pennies to buy but look at the pdas which are expensive (hense the fingerprint cabinet they are meant to be kept in) still get left /lost.

@Eggbert Nobacon ....
Quick answer to why we have so much stock.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-holding-large-amount-inventory-75437.html (https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-holding-large-amount-inventory-75437.html)

And now:
Let say you need 10 cases of x product for monday, you receive 20 beacuse tesco bought it very cheap in bulk.
You are overloaded with work and have no time to replenish properly and you just put out 5 cases. So you have 15 cases left.
Then there is an error and you receive another 10 cases on tueasday instead of 5.
And now you stuck with 25 cases in warehouse to start with.
And on wednesday you receive another 20 cases ....
...and we could go on like that for next 100 years.

Many years ago we were told we were moving to "one touch fill", still waiting.
Additional stock will come in for promotions. It can also be a mistake or as a result of poor routines. There is a long, long list of reasons that this happens but we need to react to it in the right way. Ask someone from stock control to investigate, if book stocks are not correct that is the starting point to correct but it could be capacities etc.

Every single night without fail

Quote from: Redshoes on 21-10-20, 11:00AM
Many years ago we were told we were moving to "one touch fill", still waiting.
Additional stock will come in for promotions. It can also be a mistake or as a result of poor routines. There is a long, long list of reasons that this happens but we need to react to it in the right way. Ask someone from stock control to investigate, if book stocks are not correct that is the starting point to correct but it could be capacities etc.

Many years ago...stock control did what it said on the tin..maintained the store stock, ordered stock in for the store, monitored un/popular lines and reduced/increased capacity accordingly...worked hand in hand with the merchandising team...ordered stock in for customers...and had a damn more staff than they do now, all mainly full time. Daily routines were maintained, and allowed to get on with them, all hands was only ever at Easter/ Christmas periods, and the stock control routines were suspended for the team to support.
Then it all went downhill about 10 years ago...managers started interfering in the book stocks, when shrink became the number 1 new black...treasure hunting was a joke...you arrived in the morning to find all the stock records you had inputted the previous day, had been messed about with and managers denying all knowledge...stock you had wiped off was put back on, as " I've seen it in the warehouse" yeah? So where is it then and why isn't it out? So again the next day it's on your gapscan...no sign...told " don't gap it, it's in the back" reply " it's a gap scan routine, to scan gaps, either put it out, tell me where it is, or admit you ain't got it!"
End of promotion...all overstock taken off shelves and put in green trays a mile high and randomly dumped in the warehouse...how anyone supposed to see, never mind count everything in the trays.
Discontinued...routine was to take label off, map shelf  and put new labels out...reality, take labels off, if time (HA) map and put new labels out...but you'll mainly  find that labels either don't print off, empty drawers, no paper, or someone else has already mapped same facings, but not put labels out, so the labels don't print, as the facings  entered have already been entered but new labels not replaced old. Zero all discontinued labels, so that dot com availability is updated!
BUT NO!! Hours were dropped throughout store, checkout support deemed a priority, all hands and rumble, and your lucky to have a good 2 hours daily on your own routines.
So I wouldn't advise you to go to stock control and request they investigate...or worse...enquire if they are doing their job and routines correctly...if they're on top of the bookstocks and capacities?...that really isn't reacting in the correct way!! Trust me!!
I'd suggest you enquire to any manager to investigate...every manager, even checkout, should know how to do this...guarantee they don't...or better still, if the SM is getting on your case, ask for help in finding a certain section of investigation on the PDA!! HA!! ;D ;D

Chilled and frozen cages are left out regularly. This has been happening for years.

express i worked in had room in the fridge for 8 cages. on any given day, 3 cage spaces were occupied by milk, 2 by fresh backstock and 1 by the waste cage leaving 2. an average fresh drop was 8 cages and that would have 1 person dedicated to working it and 1 working/covering till ( mostly, they were on a till 8-) ) it doesnt take a genius to figure out the cold chain was an unachievable fantasy! i was quick, but not that quick!!! not too concerning in the winter when the back areas were pretty cool but in the summer.......yeah, you really dont want to be eating a prawn sarnie to be honest :D

Happens every single day of Christmas week in my store. I remember once when we had a ridiculous amount of stock even by X mas standards; the cages and dollies we couldn't cram into the chill was left in the back yard. To be fair, it was quite chilly out there... ;D

everytime been through protector line with it, response we get is "all procedures have been followed, the areas in question due to being opened can allow the products to remain in this area for a lengthier period of time" - always the same bull**** with it,

yes frozens closed doors are all making enough cold air for the products to stop defrosting, and chilled products on the aisle are perfectly fine from 10pm to 7am and won't be warm? usually warm after an hour on it.... lol

Your wasting your time with protector line regarding this issue log times and dates for a short time and contact environmental health dept of your local council

Quote from: lucgeo on 23-10-20, 05:23PM

Quote from: Redshoes on 21-10-20, 11:00AM
Many years ago we were told we were moving to "one touch fill", still waiting.
Additional stock will come in for promotions. It can also be a mistake or as a result of poor routines. There is a long, long list of reasons that this happens but we need to react to it in the right way. Ask someone from stock control to investigate, if book stocks are not correct that is the starting point to correct but it could be capacities etc.

Many years ago...stock control did what it said on the tin..maintained the store stock, ordered stock in for the store, monitored un/popular lines and reduced/increased capacity accordingly...worked hand in hand with the merchandising team...ordered stock in for customers...and had a damn more staff than they do now, all mainly full time. Daily routines were maintained, and allowed to get on with them, all hands was only ever at Easter/ Christmas periods, and the stock control routines were suspended for the team to support.
Then it all went downhill about 10 years ago...managers started interfering in the book stocks, when shrink became the number 1 new black...treasure hunting was a joke...you arrived in the morning to find all the stock records you had inputted the previous day, had been messed about with and managers denying all knowledge...stock you had wiped off was put back on, as " I've seen it in the warehouse" yeah? So where is it then and why isn't it out? So again the next day it's on your gapscan...no sign...told " don't gap it, it's in the back" reply " it's a gap scan routine, to scan gaps, either put it out, tell me where it is, or admit you ain't got it!"
End of promotion...all overstock taken off shelves and put in green trays a mile high and randomly dumped in the warehouse...how anyone supposed to see, never mind count everything in the trays.
Discontinued...routine was to take label off, map shelf  and put new labels out...reality, take labels off, if time (HA) map and put new labels out...but you'll mainly  find that labels either don't print off, empty drawers, no paper, or someone else has already mapped same facings, but not put labels out, so the labels don't print, as the facings  entered have already been entered but new labels not replaced old. Zero all discontinued labels, so that dot com availability is updated!
BUT NO!! Hours were dropped throughout store, checkout support deemed a priority, all hands and rumble, and your lucky to have a good 2 hours daily on your own routines.
So I wouldn't advise you to go to stock control and request they investigate...or worse...enquire if they are doing their job and routines correctly...if they're on top of the bookstocks and capacities?...that really isn't reacting in the correct way!! Trust me!!
I'd suggest you enquire to any manager to investigate...every manager, even checkout, should know how to do this...guarantee they don't...or better still, if the SM is getting on your case, ask for help in finding a certain section of investigation on the PDA!! HA!! ;D ;D

Stock Control used to be an essential part of Fresh. If you had a problem with stock levels, you could take it to SC, who back in the Good Old Days, had direct power to change levels on most lines.

Then some morons at head office, who have obviously never done a real day's work in their lives, decided to set up Centre. SC lost all ability to directly influence stock levels, and Fresh departments are regularly stuck with either too much or too little stock.

I was one of those stock controllers, saw the writing on the wall when HO started ordering centrally and retrained on Wages. The very first Xmas with everything done centrally was a total disaster in my store, They made no effort to do orders which suited all the areas of the Company, e.g North East, South East, Norfolk, Scotland, etc. All areas have their own Xmas traditions and Xmas food needs. I had 15 years worth of experience and paper records showing my store's requirements but despite all that knowledge HO knew better. We lost more customers to all the other supermarkets that year due to the total lack of stock which were traditional to them.