Wal
The retail giant is releasing its third quarter earnings tomorrow, Nov. 13, but in the meantime the New York Times splashed some coverage of the company in today's news cycle.
In a Nov. 11 story called ' Wal-Mart Memo Orders Stores to Improve Grocery Performance,' the NYT piece by Steven Greenhouse and Hiroko Tabuchinov reports on a memo from management about lagging performance in perishables.
The NYT coverage said that the 'urgent agenda' memo, delivered Oct. 2, scolds produce managers to 'validate that stores are fully executing on 'Would I Buy It?'
In other words, remove ugly and decaying fruits and vegetables from the produce department.
The exhortation to perform better at store level also reminds managers to reduce backup inventory to trim costs and not go over budget for their stores.
Wal-Mart's reported resistance to staffing up the produce department and other perishable departments is hurting their performance, it seems to me. The NYT coverage reported that Wolfe Research said if employee growth had kept up with the growth in retail space over the past few years, Wal-Mart would have 200,000 more workers than the 1.3 million U.S. workers it has now.
One Wal-Mart produce associate in the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group recently commented about waste in the produce department. The scenario is perhaps not unique to Wal-Mart, but he says that overbuying, the chain's rigid planogram, ignorance and misguided priorities contribute to produce waste.
More chances to poke and prod at Wal-Mart's performance will come tomorrow.
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