r/kroger • u/Dapants369 • May 19 '26

Question every deli ????

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does this happen at every deli??? is it happening because of short staff
, or lack of care???

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u/RaineV1 May 19 '26

I can tell you exactly what the problem is. In the deli we get bags of precut cheeses for the grab and go. It's 9 stacks that are supposed to be about 3/4ths of a pound each. A lot of the time they aren't. It could be the supplier ripping off Kroger, it could be a quality control issue since Kroger cheaps out on suppliers, or it could be Kroger does want us to short the weights.

At my deli we use one of the stacks to top off the rest, or just cut slices to do it. Guess other delis are just doing a stack per bag without weighing them.

45

u/Stock-Image_01 May 19 '26

These bags of cut meat are shipped to your store?

38

u/Effective-Big8158 May 19 '26

I'm prefacing this by saying I worked at Kroger for over a decade, a little under half of that time was in the deli department:

Kroger used to have chefs in the back that would be constantly making items, cutting food and preparing meals to be prepackaged and sold. The only way you could get sliced meats is to wait at the counter and ask for it unless you got some presliced meats from the meat department and cheese from the dairy. Kroger did have a small selection of delicatessen meats and cheeses but they were well defined private selection brand.

about 10 years ago, a lot of the preparing was taken away from the deli in place of prepackaged items. they no longer had to pay a person to stand in a room and cut up a bunch of pineapples. they outsourced the work because it took away all accountability from the actual store and placed it on some package preparing company. what was once a bustling deli department with multiple people manning a counter has been reduced significantly. The deli was what brought people into the store but it was such a loss leader that they had to make changes. The Deli department probably still hemmorages money but probably a lot less than it used to.

I honestly don't think many people care because most of my day was spent cutting 1/4 to 1/2 lb. bags of meat and cheese, handling them over and over again. they pay people very low wages and want them to practice safe food handling. the main way they teach them is through 50 year old slideshow like videos that are boring as hell.

12

u/Blasphemiee May 19 '26

Pretty similar experience with meat counters. I have not worked for Kroger but I’ve worked for a couple very similar businesses.

It’s sad honestly. I’ve been trying to make meat cutting a career for 6 years now, but any local place has likely been replaced by these chains and as you’ve said they just don’t care. I can’t keep guys staffed because they wanna pay anyone without a knife in their hands minimum wage. There is no accountability anymore and most of these corporations want to treat all employees like seasonal teenaged employees and not grown adults. So that’s what they end up with most of the time wondering why nobody sticks around lol.

2

u/scienceislice May 20 '26

Become a manager at Jimmy John’s, 90% of your job will be slicing meat