Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis 0:03
Hi. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. Today we're talking with my friend Ron Waters. Have you ever wondered, how does my grocery store get laid out? Why is there a sudden shortage of a certain product? What happened to that product? Where did that go? What is actually happening with all of the dairy in this section? If you've ever wondered any one of those questions, this is the episode for you. Please enjoy my lively and fun conversation with my friend Ron Waters.
Ron 0:50
Absolutely, without saying the name of that particular chain, I can tell you that I've been working for them. Oh, I think about- it depends on how I calculate it. But at least 44 years, maybe 45.
Bryndis 1:04
Oh, wow!
Ron 1:04
That's a long time.
Bryndis 1:05
Yeah, just a few years. But everyone knows you.
Ron 1:08
Everybody does.
Bryndis 1:10
Yep, exactly. And I think when you work for a store where some people have been there for so long, it really helps the staff and stuff like or, and not just the staff, but the customers really feel appreciated. They're like, Oh, I've known this person for years.
Ron 1:28
And they feel that they can speak candidly, right? Because sometimes, as things change within our supply and our environment, you get frustrated a little bit. So when a person has been in this situation for a number of years, and you've seen them almost every time you pop in the store, then you get more comfortable, and you feel like you can air things out a little bit.
Bryndis 1:52
Completely. Yeah, yeah. So with that kind of 40-45, years of evolution, I'm sure you've seen so much changes from where it was, you know.
Ron 2:08
Do you know what Tac is?
Bryndis 2:09
Actually? No.
Ron 2:12
Okay, so when I first started at the store that I'm presently employed at, we used to sell TAC and salt slicks.
Bryndis 2:21
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Ron 2:22
Well, then I saw your lights, your eyes light up, so you have a bit of an idea, right? Yeah. So tac was for horses and the salt licks were for the cattle, and that we were right that we sold them right in our store, right?
Bryndis 2:34
Because it would would have been close enough, that-
Ron 2:37
Close enough to the edge of the city, of course. Now we're no longer at the edge of the city.
Bryndis 2:41
No, you're almost viewed as an inner city.
Ron 2:44
Absolutely, and of course, we have stores in the inner and outer city as well, so it's nice to be able to see that growth. But we started, when I started at that store, that's the sort of thing that we used to sell, and TVs and clothes and everything. And now we don't.
Bryndis 3:02
There was the clothes and all that. I remember that, yeah, oh, and the TVs, yeah.
Ron 3:07
TV and at one point travel, and at one point we had other offices, other like minded businesses that were within the confines of our building. So now all that is gone, you know, because one of the things about supply chain management, one of the things you get very good at with it is that you focus your attention on what is really the core values of your business, and you're trying to get really good at ensuring that whatever your core values are you have it. Now for us, it's grocery distribution, right, making sure that milk is on the shelves for mom and dad and for the kids, and making sure that there's chocolate bars in the aisle for me! So we want to be exactly the variety, right, of everything that we need. So you get really good at concentrating. You get really good at concentrating, as to how we can do that in a most effective manner. So back in the days, and I'm talking back in, oh, I don't want to tell you, back in the days, many years ago, when I first started, generally speaking, even the larger stores like ours, you would have three orders come in a week. Only three orders a week. Well, usually one at the beginning of the week, usually one in the middle and usually one at the end. Of course, there were other things too. For instance, back in those days, the dairy would bring in their milk every day, but it was always stocked by a local dairy person. Was not stocked by the staff at a store. So how they stocked things and kept things was amazingly different in those days, absolutely. So yeah, we would get through that truck once a week. So what that would usually mean is that you had to have sufficient space to store things, and you'd have to order in sufficient quantities to last you the whole at least three or four days before your next order comes in. Nowadays we get five days worth of delivery, so all of a sudden you don't need that space that you used to need. And of course, we have the systems back in those days that were all hand done. So you would order everything by hand on large cards where you would mark down the quantities that you had and then the quantities you thought you would need for the next delivery, which might be two or three days from now. Now, everything's done automatically, and your order comes in, if not the next day, then the day thereafter, immediately thereafter. And nowadays, we use electronic means of ordering, no more paper, no more pen, with the exception of a couple areas, no more paper or pen. You just scan things in with whatever device you have, whatever reader you have, and all of a sudden your order is ready and going to be arriving the next day. Oh, a huge difference. And that order might be the electronic order might actually go from one city, in Calgary, to another city, maybe Edmonton, it could be Saskatoon, it could be Winnipeg, and then come back again all in time for your order to be delivered in two days.
Bryndis 6:41
Yeah, it's amazing. What a difference.
Ron 6:44
Absolutely amazing. So what do you do with the space?
Bryndis 6:48
Yeah, what do you do with the space?
Ron 6:50
Good question. You see Bryndis, that's why you're doing this interview. You have all the good questions. Well, one of the things that I've noticed as a trend is that they have taken the space that would normally be in the center, and they have marketed it off with many other different things. So we no longer we don't need the warehouse space. Most places don't have warehouse space. And in place of where they would have had the warehouse space, they will put other stores or other entities within that space that there was before. So I'll give you an example. It used to be, in the old days, I would probably have about seven or eight skids of, can I say this, Coca Cola, seven or eight skids of Coca Cola, and maybe about five or six or seven skids of Pepsi in my warehouse space. Just totally full, and I used to complain to those guys that I don't know why we've become your warehouse because, you know, you keep so much product here. But actually, what happens is nowadays, if we give them one skid, one space for one skid, because we have no warehouse space, they have to adjust how they order. And of course, that means that they have, that means that they have to come more often to the store.
Bryndis 8:11
True. And so there's the ones that come in for your grocery store chain, and there's the ones that come in as other kinds of suppliers. Yeah, do they have-
Ron 8:26
We call them DSDs or direct sales distributors. So there's some items that we would order ourselves from our principal suppliers. We have two in our store. We have two principal suppliers. They usually show up at different times during the day, but they show up pretty much every day. And then on top of that, we have all the smaller suppliers. For instance, we get milk from Saputo, which is a fairly large Milk Company here in Alberta. And so they show up almost every day, about five days a week, and we order that. So we usually get, on a daily basis, about three skids of milk. So that goes right into our dairy cooler. Our dairy cooler is big enough to hold that, in addition to being able to hold maybe two or three skids of dairy products that do not come from Saputo. So, yeah, there's a lot of maneuvering to get all those things in. But my, have things changed as far as the delivery and the distribution of those systems. So you can imagine the fleets that they used to have. They no longer need those sorts of fleets anymore.
Bryndis 9:36
They wouldn't.
Ron 9:37
They wouldn't, not in supply chain management so that you would have to have, for instance, we get a lot of our deliveries on 51 foot trailers, which is the standard in the industry. Years ago, the meat department would have their own trucks coming in, and then dairy would have theirs, produce would come in with just a short box sort of trailer. And they didn't need 51 foot trailers. Now, a lot of that is combined. It comes from one of two principal suppliers. So that means that the space that's within those trailers has to be very carefully arranged, because you're bringing in several skids of product and so you want to maximize the use of that trailer. So they pack them pretty good. Sometimes the skids that I might be pulling off the back in a store might be eight feet tall, yeah, and there might be 10 of those.
Bryndis 10:40
Just a few.
Ron 10:41
Just a few. Yeah, just for a day or two, exactly. So, yeah, maximizing the potential use of that space is very important, particularly as we've gotten away from many companies doing their own sort of deliveries, to farming that out to larger warehouse conglomerates that might do several different companies in different stores. So your supplier may not be the old traditional supplier of days gone by.
Bryndis 11:09
Right. So when the truck is loaded, is it like one section always in, like in different areas of the truck, or is it kind of mixed up, sometimes?
Ron 11:22
Exceptionally mixed up. Now, the whole idea is they're trying to put things together as quickly as quickly as they possibly can, because, of course, you only have one day to get it together, get it organized, and your orders could be anywhere between three to 500 pieces just for one store. So usually what they try to do, where they follow, even with that, even with that, that's not right. I was going to say they try to zone out the different stores, so that you get one store on one part of the truck another store. But even sometimes that doesn't work, because they want to maximize the space. So sometimes they'll even stack skids of product from one store and mix it in with another store, which is, yeah, it maximizes the use of that space in that particular trailer-
Bryndis 12:08
But don't maximize otherwise.
Ron 12:12
No, because then when I have to pull it off, for instance, and I have a skid on top of one skid, and one is for my store and one is for another store, that means I have to take the time to find some specialized equipment to unstack that and then to reload it back into the trailer again.
Bryndis 12:27
Exactly. So it's maximizing efficiency one way, but maybe not in another space.
Ron 12:31
Absolutely, you got it, right. So those are the challenges that we're facing in modern day and age, right? So yeah, so our warehouse space goes, that means you have to depend on things being ordered in a very systematic manner. And then you just hope that they can keep it sorted out somewhat reasonably.
Bryndis 12:53
Fully, yeah. And so that, you know, there's so many different pieces in that kind of set up. Well and I bet when things are sectioned off it depends on the different seasons too, because you've got different products coming in. So maybe you've got, you know, around Thanksgiving, or, you know, Christmas, you've got extra turkeys coming in, or something like that. That adds a whole bunch of other logistical-
Ron 13:21
Absolutely. Of course, the challenge is the volumes, now, it's very, very interesting, because when I first started the business here in Calgary, there were three principal suppliers, in other words, three grocery stores you can go to, okay? There was no Walmart. There was no oh, what's another there was no Sunterra. Some of those really unique sort of chains that exist. There were just three. And nowadays there is a score of different types of stores that are going to offer you, sometimes a very niche market that they will cater to. So it's interesting to kind of see how that has changed the market. When I first started, we had a much higher volume of customers than we do today, and that's true almost everywhere. You know now that the larger ones, such as Superstore have come in and some of the other ones, they cater to certain markets, and that draws away to a certain extent, what would be your market share. So all the time, people, in addition to trying to economize and maximize opportunity by using space effectively, whether that includes like on a 51 foot trailer, or even in a store location where all of a sudden there was one venue and now there's four. So it allows opportunity, or it's understandable that the size of those that are part of your market that you were selling to will also shrink. And in addition to that, as communities change, you can sometimes get competition, if you want to use that term, competition from your own store chains, because you might have had like when I started in Calgary, we had. Uh, what was that six? Yeah, we had six stores for the whole city. Now there's 23, and that's just for the company that I work for. If you go to some of the other companies, they've done the same sort of thing. So all of a sudden, the amount of people that are going to vie for attention in your area has to be reduced by half or even more. Wow. So your volumes aren't there anymore. And of course, inside the stores, some stores will be catering to your local brands. And when I say local brands, I mean brands that are local to that specific company. Okay, so you have your low some stores are very heavy on local or no name brands.
Bryndis 16:13
No Name, Compliments, all those-
Ron 16:15
All those sort of generic private labels. And that's what they are called, the private labels, right? So they will cater to that, and they will have huge amounts to satisfy the needs of their community. Other stores will cater to brand names, and they'll try to do the same sort of thing, but their cost of product is going to be a little bit higher. So it depends on what is happening within your own local community and what clientele you have. For instance, where I live, we are reasonably priced- we have clients that have a fairly good economic base, and with that base, they can afford to buy a lot of groceries or a lot of food for their family, whereas there are other communities where that economic base is not there. And, and so what they take in their market share, and I see this even within my own company, there's some stores where, you know, you can get filet mignon quite easily, yeah. And there's other stores where maybe rump roast might be the thing that is most popular in that area.
Bryndis 17:23
Well, now he was even noticing, in like, the, you know, a bigger chain, like Costco, there's, you know, one store where, you know, you can get, like, full like legs, like full racks of lamb, whereas other stores, you've never seen anything like that.
Ron 17:43
No, you won't, and that's exactly because the local market kind of makes that determination, right? And it's similar with us. We're constantly changing things, and what might be popular in one particular store might not be popular in another store. And here's another thing that a lot of people don't realize, generally speaking, when it comes to how stores are set up or situated. It depends on the classification of the store that they are in.That changes. So for instance, for the company that I work for, we have three classifications of A, B and C. You're still not going to be able to figure out which store that is yet. No, no. But it really does depend on the size, and that size will also depend on what is offered within that store. Yeah, the store that I work at is a B class store, so we don't carry everything. Yeah, we do carry lots, but we don't carry everything. So for instance, in my store, we will carry some European foods in the specialty sections, and we will carry a lot of Filipino foods in that section. We do not carry any Jewish foods in our section, because there's just not that market in our area.
Bryndis 18:59
Okay, yeah. And so you have to adapt based on the sections.
Ron 19:03
Based on what is the demand or the needs for your particular market. So there's a lot that goes into that, and it's enough that you really can't depend on humans to make those sorts of decisions. So all of a sudden you have to look at the buyers in your company, what are they going to buy, or what are they going to purchase? And they rely very heavily on computers to make those sorts of shelf assignments. Sometimes we don't always agree. Sometimes they'll bring in a product that we think is going to be dead and all, and it is a dead product. It doesn't sell at all. Yeah. And then other times you find that, much to your surprise, those computers were right, oh yes. And then all of a sudden it says we should have four facings or five facings. And by the way, the computers do determine that, it's not the people within the store, the individual store. It's the computer shelves management system that will determine how many facings there will be of a particular skew, and whether or not that should be adjusted as time goes on.
Bryndis 20:19
Oh, yeah, that would definitely change as it evolved too.
Ron 20:23
Yes, and it's continually evolving. That's one thing you have to always make. That's one of the things I say to my customers, yes, that particular product is not in our store yet, but wait, it might be just in a couple weeks. And please come and ask me, because I might not even know, but I at least know where to look for it, so.
Bryndis 20:44
Yeah, well, and that's also, you know, knowing where things are, and you know how things kind of evolve in the way that they're laid out, too. Like in our local grocery store, they switched everything around, and so now the lower selling items are at the front, okay, the higher selling items are at the back, so that you walk through the store to get your items.
Ron 21:11
That location management is a key ingredient, and there's a lot that goes into that that people don't realize. So yes, absolutely, and they want to have certain things that will catch the eyes of a customer that are located on certain shelves. Oh, so just to make sure that as you're walking down to the item that you know you need, you can see another particular item that is maybe something you don't really need, but you know it's you like it, yeah? So you'll get it.
Bryndis 21:41
Because it's placed-
Ron 21:43
Its placed where you can see it. So, yes, a lot goes into this process, as far as marketing and just the whole logistics of the matter, right?
Bryndis 21:53
Fully. It would be like, Yeah, I'm just thinking about it. Because, like, as I walk to go get, you know, milk, you have to suddenly walk by the, you know, shredded cheese, or you walk by the chips, but it's also the Doritos, or, like the whatever, the one thing you don't really need, but it's right there.
Ron 22:16
Impulse items. Absolutely. And if you notice in the stores, there's lots of baskets all over the place, in the various aisles in front of the tills, where you have all these mounds and mounds and mounds of product, people don't realize that you are inherently drawn to these mounds of product. You know there, you're not drawn to a basket that has everything nice and neatly ordered because it's too pretty and so people won't go and purchase something or take something away so that it ruins the display, whereas, if you just throw them into a bin, people will say, Oh, doesn't matter if I take something, it's going to be okay, because nobody's going to notice, right? Exactly. And usually it's those nice, little, expensive things that you don't really need that are in those baskets. So there's a lot that goes into the management, where you put displays, how long you leave a display up for, and what sort of patterns they have for sales. All that goes into the formula.
Bryndis 23:20
Oh, yeah, totally fascinating. That's really neat.
Ron 23:25
Absolutely. And just think, I mean, when I walk into a store, I'm probably like you. When I walk into a store and I see a sale sign, I think, Oh, that's really good. I'm going to get that, which is true. But in our particular system, I believe there's about eight or nine different sale programs ongoing at any time. And what that means is that there might be one product that's going to be on sale for a week, there might be another product that's going to be on sale for three days, there might. And you're not going to remember all this, right, so you're going to go and you're going to buy one thing, and then you think that that's going to last, and you come back and maybe that sales over with. But I really like that product, so I'm going to get it anyway. So, yeah, there's a lot that goes into that decision making, as far as what we can offer locally here that will be of benefit to our customers or our client base.
Bryndis 24:18
Well, and also, when there's like, extra promotions of like, buy this item and get these extra points, buy this item and get these extra points and the amount of stuff like because at one point I was collecting this one point system, the amount of stuff that I bought, I didn't really need, but I got 1000 points at the end of all of that.
Ron 24:39
And what did you do with those points?
Bryndis 24:42
Well, I actually did use it for travel.
Ron 24:45
Oh you did it for travel. Yeah, okay, because a lot of programs are designed now that you'll just go back and use them in the very store where you got the points in the first place. So it's a nice way of keeping the bottom line a little bit nicer and inflated, so it's good. I'm glad you're able to use them for what you want to and you know, there's nothing wrong with using points to get something at the end of the month, it's a little bit cheaper anyway, because costs are going up and up and up. And can I make one observation? My salary isn't going up and up and up. Most employees that work within larger retail stores, have not seen any significant increase for many years. So when you're seeing the increase in prices, it's more likely to do with the other things that are built within the supply chain. Principally, it's logistical. I don't think it's the primary producers that are necessarily making more money, at least, if I listen to the news, they're not, and when I when they come to our store to promote products, they're telling us that they're not getting more money with all these increases. But there are costs. Yeah, right. Fuel is a huge cost, okay, so that has been going up significantly, and people can appreciate that. It also, you know, if you think about a modern store, when the staff leave the store and customers aren't there, think about what is still running, all the refrigeration, all the lighting, all that that is built into a modern day store, it still has to go on. Those costs have to be met, and those costs are generally higher.
Bryndis 26:38
Yeah, and they're growing exponentially.
Ron 26:42
Absolutely. So just remember that when you're complaining about the next jug of milk, how much it costs.
Bryndis 26:49
Yeah, when you think of all of those other pieces that are still going on when the store is closed.
Ron 26:56
And they definitely affect your purchasing power for sure.
Bryndis 27:01
Well, and you know, just thinking of, you know, the moments of when the store is closed, there's still staff. And so sometimes I've, you know, in our conversations, it's been more of a well, I gotta work at 5am but I'm off at one. But what times do the shift start in most of the chains, or at least in yours?
Ron 27:23
Well most chains do start very early. So a lot of stores will open up at five or six in the morning, and of course, that means that they're going to be in operation until everybody leaves, and then you got your janitors that come in to clean and polish and and wipe things down and and buff things up. So probably, if there's nobody in the store, they might exist for two to three hours, and that's about it.
Bryndis 27:48
Wow, yeah, you just don't even think about it. It's one of those things you don't think of. You don't think of what happens when the store is closed.
Ron 27:56
Yeah, I remember one time. I don't know if I should really be saying, Oh, I'll tell you this story, because you don't know who I am yet. Anyway, I remember one time I wanted to go on a trip, and I needed to get some cash out of the bank, yeah, and there just happened to be an automatic teller inside my store. So I had the privilege of going into my store to get some money out, because it was very secure and I had access, so I went out, got my money out, very nice and secure and everything. I felt really good because I didn't have to be lurking around the corner with other people watching what I was doing. And then as I was walking out, the door alarm went off, and the door alarm went off because the janitor forgot to lock the front door. So of course, being the dutiful person that I am, I called my manager and explained the situation, told him that I was able to look after it, and I locked the door. And so just if the alarm company phones, it's not a biggie. There's nobody's breaking in, right? And then my manager said, Well, that's fine, Ron, but it's three o'clock in the morning. What are you doing? So if you can imagine, oh, well, I just had to get some cash out! So yes, really, the amount of times that a store is honestly empty is very small. Now, of course, that's not with everything, right? There are other stores, like, even within my chain, we have some subsidiary stores, and their hours aren't as long as the hours are, but there are some places that are even longer. So for instance, if your store has a gas bar attached to it, or some sort of gas company selling gasoline to vehicles or other auto things, their hours might start much earlier than what even my hours would be, right, and they might go a little bit later than what our hours will go. So there's a lot that goes into trying to figure out how it is that we can best utilize our time, especially nowadays. For instance, a lot of people don't realize, but you're not allowed to work alone anymore like we used to. Oh, completely, yes. So nowadays, there has to be at least two people within a vicinity to be able to help one another out, if there's a challenge. So, you know, that's a new provision as far as working alone that the province of Alberta has had to do. They do things like that, because there's a need, but it then has to be factored into the formula. What do we get these two people to do when before it was just one?
Bryndis 30:38
Oh, yeah. It would change that dynamic.
Ron 30:42
Absolutely. So then you just you, but you see, you just manage it again. You know, you go back to the drawing board. Locally, this is where I find stores are allowed to do things on their own, because they really are the masters of their area. And so they know what would work well for that particular startup. They also know what time their supplies are coming, like, what time the various trucks come. We may get 20 orders a day. So you have to be able to figure out when those orders are coming in. Sometimes it's a little bit crazy. Sometimes we will have three or four different vendors showing up right at the same time. Oh, fun. So you have to kind of sort that out as best as you can, but we get the products out. And of course, nowadays there's a lot of care that goes into products. And what I mean by that is that the actual chain that products go through, is it a refrigerator product? So therefore, when it comes off the truck, is the refrigeration adequate, or does it have to be sent back? Or can it be set in a particular area where it gets cooler on its own? So that's just with a refrigerated product.
Bryndis 31:58
Yeah, and making sure that entire chain, that entire piece of that cold supply chain, you know, there isn't, you know, waste in that moment like that is so crucial.
Ron 32:09
Absolutely and everything has to be documented. You document, you document, you document. So you would be amazed at the amount of paperwork that is now, considering we're in an age of computers, there's a lot of documentation that has to be done to ensure that we haven't missed something.
Bryndis 32:32
Yeah, I would think so, yeah.
Ron 32:34
So that's all in place as well. So you know, when an item comes in, we have to first of all check and see is, is it an item that needs special handling? Okay, good. Let's document that. Let's record the temperatures that it came in at then as it's within storage, those refrigerated units, the coolers or cases, whatever they are, are they functioning properly? Well, let's document the temperatures of that equipment to make sure that it's functioning properly. And then it goes on and on and on from there.
Bryndis 33:07
Fully, yeah, well, and also produce versus milk versus, you know, like the general store. All are different temperatures, different packing, different skids, even.
Ron 33:22
Yes absolutely. So you have to kind of have some ideas of what things are going on. So store people are really well trained. They have to be and they have to have rigorous training. So as long as that training is in place, they have to be trained for everything. Have you ever heard of whmis? Have you heard of that? That program? It stands for workplace hazardous materials information system.Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Bryndis 33:49
No, that's a good thing, because I was about to, I was gonna ask you to tell, yeah, the audience what that was.
Ron 33:56
Okay. But how does that compare with GHS?
Bryndis 33:58
And what is GHS?
Ron 34:01
GHS is the new modern term for WHMIS. We don't use WHMIS anymore. Oh, we now use GHS, and I'm trying to remember what the acronym stands for. It is work. No, It's something hazardous. What that is, is we've gone away from having a system that's unique and designed for Canada to a system that is unique and designed for the whole world.
Bryndis 34:28
Whmis was Canadian?
Ron 34:30
Whmis was Canadian.
Bryndis 34:31
So now this other one is-
Ron 34:32
International, under the care of the United Nations. So, oh, different systems of measurement, you know, that helps us to be able to say, is this particular product safe, or is it not safe, right? And so that that kind of goes into the formula, it just illustrates just how much more complicated this world of retail has become.
Bryndis 34:59
When you look at those pieces, and you know, when you look at the kind of different products or times that you've seen certain things kind of come in. What kind of trends have you seen change? Like, is there a certain type of milk that's now more popular than it used to be?
Ron 35:20
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, we have all sorts of different type of offerings when it comes to things like milk. It used to be, in days gone by, you would have homo milk and you would have 2%, and that would be it, maybe buttermilk. And that would be it. Nowadays, you have homo milk, not called Homo milk anymore. It's called 3.25% or whole milk, yeah, okay, then the 2% and then the surprising winner nowadays is 1%. It used to be just on the fringe, and now it's one of the more popular milks that you can buy, yeah. And then we can have chocolate milk and vanilla milk, and we can have all sorts of little flavored milks. And some of those flavored milks are what we call shelf stable. In other words, they don't need refrigeration until you open them up. And some milk products are non shelf stable, right? And we're not even talking about the almond, the oat, the you know, everything else, the soybean products that are now available as well. So there is a tremendous Oh, of course, we cannot forget oat milk. No. How could we ever forget oat milk?
Bryndis 36:34
Of course. How can we ever forget?
Ron 36:36
Yeah, it's not my favorite, okay? And, the same trend goes on with everything. I mean, we, I, we probably carry about 20 different types of butter.
Bryndis 36:49
Oh, yeah. Whereas before it was just butter.
Ron 36:52
It was just butter, yeah, maybe two types of butter. But now there's so many. I can't even go through the whole list of how many different butter renditions there are.
Bryndis 37:02
Or even yogurt.
Speaker 1 37:04
Yeah, a very good example there. So you can imagine then if our customer base is lower and we're having to bring these supplies in more often because we have no warehouse space, and we have a whole different variety of products that are coming in. Like, how do you do that? How do you get all that fit into the program? And that's where these modern departments are set up with very, more integrated systems of management. You know, I remember one time when I first started, remember, I said the pencil and the, you know, cards that we used to order on. I'll never forget when we first got our first computer, it was actually just for the tills. It really wasn't even for ordering yet. And all the staff, I was of that generation that were just learning about computers. In fact, I remember going to a Radio Shack store and on their display, they had this thing called, I don't know if you recall, ever heard about this thing? It was called a mouse, and I remembered I was so afraid of touching it because I didn't want to break it. So that was my experience. And then all of a sudden, they started bringing computers into the store, and we had to figure out how to use them. And you know what? I wasn't the only one that was afraid to touch the computers. Mostly, everybody else was a little skittish too, yeah. So it took a long time to be able to get people to the point where they were comfortable using a computer at the outset. And now they're essential. There's, you know, everything from emails to everything that you have to do in ordering, the various different ordering systems that are attached to a modern store. You couldn't exist without the use of a computer.
Bryndis 38:58
Yeah, well, and computers, tablets, code readers, all of the different technologies too.
Ron 39:04
Produce department uses all the tablets we used to think, will they ever be able to use that? I mean, using a tablet? Yes, tablets are used even nowadays. It's a very interesting mix that we have in rules as they're trying to change the dynamics of the world today. For instance, when I was a young man, the only people that were allowed cell phones were either drug influencers or very high up political figures and construction people.
Bryndis 39:34
Yeah, or doctors, or doctors, but they mainly had the pagers.
Ron 39:37
They mainly had the pagers. So nowadays everybody has a cell phone. Now the contrast that you experience is there are definitely in companies policies that limit the use of cell phones that are personal or any other sort of device, because now it's not just cell phones anymore. There's so many different electronic devices that you could use personally, so there's a need to keep them limited for safety reasons. That's the reason why. But at the same time. How many years did I say I was working?
Bryndis 40:08
45 years.
Ron 40:10
So you know, my eyes are not quite the same as they were when I was 20 some odd, 17 some odd years. So I use a cell phone, for instance, with the magnifier so I can read the fine print as we're trying to check on expiry dates, that sort of thing. So, yeah, all that. So nowadays, you see everything's being used nowadays, where it was a taboo a few years ago.
Bryndis 40:33
Well, and that's another thing, just thinking of expiry dates, because it's hard to find the locations of expiry dates sometimes, sometimes they're on- there's no standardization for where to find the expiry dates.
Ron 40:48
And you might be facing a product code rather than an actual date, so like a production code. So you've got those challenges to face. And here's a little hint. We are a bilingual country, yeah. So expiry dates are written in both French and English. Generally, they're abbreviated so everybody can understand, if you have an English background, what BB stands for. It's best before, but usually what falls on the BB is Ma, and everybody thinks that's for the month of May. Has nothing to do with the month of May. It's for the word mat null, which is the front, which means date. Now, so it's, it's so interesting that it's not a problem in February, it's not a problem in September, but certainly in March and April and May. I continually have to remind my customers that that's a different code that they're looking at.
Bryndis 41:47
Yeah, you would, yeah. Well, so the one thing I was going to ask you about, because I kept on seeing something happen recently in various grocery stores, and I went to like, five different chains trying to get this one product, and I couldn't find it anywhere. And I was like, I'm gonna have to ask Ron, what's happening with the supply chain, because there's something happening, if I can't find it in six different types of grocery stores. And so it was a kind of oat milk product, like a coffee creamer, but it was like in the last few weeks, there was nowhere to be found. And so I was wondering if you knew anything about that, if there's something in the supply chain area?
Ron 42:35
There are several things within a supply chain that can happen with. One thing that a lot of people have to realize is this, this supply chain is quite flexible. It's really designed to do many things. So that's true with the manufacturer of products as well. So what generally, a manufacturer or a producer will do is they will estimate based on previous sales from the previous year and other patterns. They will estimate how much product they need to produce, how much packaging that they need, because remember, it's all on demand delivery now. So you don't have warehouse space, so you're not going to store it. Similarly, producers and suppliers also don't have a lot of room, and they're not going to store it. Or if they do have a lot of room, they're storing many different products for many, many different chains. So they have to quite carefully utilize the space that they have so they'll produce generally enough product to be able to sell to the market. Sometimes what happens is the market is oversold. So all of a sudden, whatever they've produced to the point that it has been produced is no longer on that particular production line, and that means we have to wait till they retool it and they get it ready for the next time that they may make that particular shipment. And that's what you will see sometimes, especially if you see things that are being shorted in more than one store, it's just a matter of the fact that they haven't retooled and gotten ready for the production again.
Bryndis 44:11
Okay, that explains some things. Because it was just, you know, I saw one or two starting to pop up, and I was like-
Ron 44:18
Similar things can happen when they do a package change. So they want to get rid of, of course, or use the term get rid of, they wish to move the product that has the old packaging so that they can make room for the product that has new packaging. And that could again, be something that might be a totally different size. You'll go from a package that was maybe 300 grams, and now it's only going to be 250 or 200. Well, that's a much smaller component. So your tooling, of all the packages that go with that, has to be readjusted. It can be a very monumental thing to be going over all these different changes.
Bryndis 44:56
Exactly. So when you think back, you know, I'm sure you've got more than a few moments, but was there ever a moment where you know, whether it was a product or, you know, something that happened and you kind of went, huh? I wonder what that was all or or something that was a fascinating moment, yeah.
Ron 45:20
Oh, my goodness. What I find interesting is the thrust from different companies, and that, what I mean by that is several of our larger companies here in Calgary, not just Calgary companies, but national companies, etc. Their direction changes quite often. A lot of it has to do with them trying to grow their market or to protect their market. Ah, so sometimes what might happen is, for instance, for a number of years a national chain that is one of the largest ones in Canada decided that they needed to protect their market a little bit more. They had operations in pharmacy stores, but they decided that they should buy some pharmacy chains. So they bought a couple of larger pharmacy chains that are now part of that national market. Okay, so when you watch that thrust. It does impact what you're doing in your local business, right?
Bryndis 46:31
Oh, fully it would change a whole bunch of different things. Yes, are there products that you no longer sell that you kind of miss?
Ron 46:38
Oh, okay, so here's one of the ones I get asked about more than anything else, and I'm setting the record straight. It is not my chain that has canceled it, but rather it is Mr. Christie, yes, and that has to be what actually happened. There's several actually with the Christie product line. And again, Christie is one of these companies that has bought and merged and changed many times over the years, and the product that I'm thinking of is a stoned Wheat Thins.
Bryndis 47:10
Yes, I have someone in my household who's very upset about that one.
Ron 47:15
Yes, and that's Mr. Christie, not us. Thank you very much. That's a decision that they made with their and of course, that's one of the most I still get. It hasn't been on the shelf for probably about six years, and I still get asked questions about it. I had somebody ask about it this week.
Bryndis 47:33
There's people in our there to at least one, if not, occasionally two, in this household. They're like, I just want stone wheat thins.
Ron 47:40
Yeah there you go. Yeah. So now you can rest assured, it's not your local grocer.
Bryndis 47:46
Yeah, well, and you were talking about how, you know, in your store, you, you know, evolved and used to have clothing. You used to have TVs. Now, of course, you don't have those products. How was the transition from taking that out or involving the stores?
Ron 48:06
Well, it's very interesting, and that happens with staff a lot of times. For instance, let me ask you a question, what do you do with a person that was a hardware clerk and now hardware no longer exists?
Bryndis 48:16
Exactly, yeah, what do you do?
Ron 48:18
What do you do with that person? Yeah, well, there's many things you can do. First of all, you could just lay them off, because that doesn't exist any longer, right? So you can let that person go, or you can try to assimilate them into another department that would involve more training and more activity for that particular individual. So, and that happens quite a lot, and that happens even within the store itself, while they maintain, like, for instance, our store is principally grocery. Well, there was one time, just as an example, we used to run a night crew. Basically, what a night crew does is they stock all the shelves, and they start at midnight and they go until, well, about seven in the morning. So in order to entice people to take that type of work, they would offer them full time benefits and full wages, full time guaranteed hours, 40 hours. So you have an established night crew. What happens if all of a sudden, your deliveries get sent to another time period and you no longer have a need for a night crew? Then you have all those employees that are guaranteed 40 hours and you have to look after them. So it's interesting how that part goes. Principally nowadays, most stores, including the chain that I work for, really want to work with less and less of employees that are 40 hours because they are a little bit boxed in. For instance, I can get two strapping young men that are half my age that can work, but they're considered what we call C employees. That means they can work from zero hours to up to 40 hours. And so they can schedule them any way that they want, and they got two of them instead of one of me, right? Who you know, you can't put me all over the place. They try. It's not always successful.
Bryndis 50:20
Yeah, but it sounds like you're a man of many talents, but I already know that.
Ron 50:25
Yeah, there's a lot we have. Bryndis, full disclosure, you and I know one another for many projects, not just the fact that I work in a grocery store.
Bryndis 50:34
Well, and but at the same time too, it was just that kind of realization, like oh I have seen you in different moments and stuff like that too. So if you were learning or talking to someone who's starting out in the industry, what advice would you give them?
Ron 50:52
There's a lot to learn, so pay attention to how you're learning. Watch those that are around, because some of the senior people are just that, just to learn, just to teach. And there's a lot of flexibility built into the system. If you're finding that maybe you're in one area of your store that is uncomfortable for you, Well, nowadays, more so than before, you can transfer to other areas and then find something that's of comfort, something that you would like to do. There are some departments that are very creative, like not me but if I'm looking at some of the cake decorators, my What do they produce on those cakes? Oh, yeah, an artistic flair you have to have for that, right? And even with some of our people in the meat department, they really have to know their stuff as far as different cuts of meat, what's going to work out well, what's not and don't hesitate to approach staff, because they'll be happy to give advice or give you suggestions, or tell you where it is, that ginger that's already candied? Yes, that's in aisle six, by the way. But then you know, you ask staff, they know where things are, and if they don't know where things are, they'll find somebody to help you to find that product?
Bryndis 52:06
It's amazing, actually, the amount of times when I do ask finally, you know, like, so frustrated I can't find it, then they're like, oh, no, it's right here. Yeah, well, and, you know, I was just thinking too of like, as grocery stores have evolved too, and now there's more of a deli section. Now there's more like, take and go and stuff like that. Has that evolved in what comes in and what and how the store is laid out in those kinds of sections, so that you can have those take home meals and those kinds of things. I'm sure it's a different kind of stuff that needs to come in for that.
Ron 52:39
Well, when I was, when I started, there was no such a thing as a deli department. Really wasn't such a thing as a bakery department, for that matter. So those are all areas that had to move in. So for instance, in the particular location I work at, they used to have a bank, they used to have inside the building, they used to have insurance offices. They used to have all sorts of things. Those things had to go and what was replaced was the modern equipment that, like a modern bakery would need, with chillers and coolers and steamers and a full functioning deli department with its own specialized ovens and other things that they use for cooking. So yes, all that changed. What comes in are obviously products that we never had before, and so they have to be brought in. Staff have to learn how to produce them, how to make them in a safe and effective manner. Nowadays, we're very concerned about food safety, and so staff have to learn all about what is safe for food? Yeah. So there's a lot that goes into that, and that's evolved over the years. As I said before, when I first started, the cashiers at the front used to put out the bread for the bakery.
Bryndis 54:01
And so is there anything just kind of looking at, kind of your career, looking at what you've done, one thing that you really love, and what has made you stay in this industry, as long as you have?
Ron 54:11
Excellent question, excellent question, because it's certainly not the pay not, please don't get me wrong. Pay is okay, but that's not what keeps you going there? And it is, in my mind, it's the people that you serve. They make the difference for you. I have people that come up to me and they said, you know, you used to smile at me when I was a little girl in the cart, and now I'm here buying groceries for my kids. So you know, those sorts of experiences are just absolutely delightful. And now, of course, we have more and more, because Canada is a diverse country, and we're more accepting of those that are not necessarily Canadian. We get an opportunity to hear other languages, to help customers find things that are maybe unique to their culture, right? So the cultural influences have changed very dramatically, and I love being able to explore and meet those of a different culture.
Bryndis 55:16
Well, this was such a great opportunity to really get a sneak peek preview into kind of the grocery store industry, and you can really tell your passion more for people, but also to really contribute in whatever way you can.
Ron 55:36
I'll tell you one thing, as we're closing off just as a little bit of a comment, as you could probably glean from our conversation, I do many other things as well, just a few, and that's probably another good reason for why I work, because it allows me that opportunity to explore many other things. And I remember one time I was at a very special event, and the head of the Calgary emergency management agency came up to me, and he introduced himself to me, and I said, I introduced myself to him, and I said, Yes. I said, I'm just a humble guy that works in a grocery store that stocks shelves and makes you know, that's what I do for a living. And he looked at me, and he said, You know what? You need to have a different attitude. You are stalking vital supplies that every family in your community needs. Your families need that milk. So you are actually of vital service to the community. And I thought to myself, I like being humble, but I'll take that too.
Bryndis 56:46
Exactly then, yeah, and we need more people like you. So thank you so much.
Ron 56:53
Well, thank you.
Bryndis 56:57
Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review more information about this topic. You can go to zebrastoapples.com or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter X, Blue Sky or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of Zebras to Apples. Have a wonderful day.