Imagine standing over a hand-wrap station wrapping 10-pound packs of chicken, ground beef, or even pork chops. Now imagine doing this for eight hours a day, five days a week. It's hard, labor-intensive work; but, when you're known for selling 10-pound packages of quality meats at an attractive price, it must be done. Mike Hayes, meat manager at little Giant Farmers Market, outside of Atlanta, Georgia knows first-hand how hard this job can be.
About Little Giant Farmers Market
With three locations in the Atlanta area and plans in place for opening more stores, Little Giant is a growing operation. Inside the store, shoppers find more than just the typical grocery staples. With unique spices from all over the would, hard-to-find condiments, a wide array of ethnic foods, as well as the popular 10-pound tubs of meat and poultry -- all at budget-friendly prices, Little Giant Farmers Market is a real find.
It's a Tough Job,
but Somebody's Got to Do It
In order to keep the meat case filled with the 10-pound tubs of quality meats the Little Giant customers love, Hayes and his crew worked tirelessly with teams of three people hand-wrapping the 10- pound tubs to ensure that customer demand was met. Although a similar automatic wrapper was unplaced to wrap and label other products in the meat case, that wrapper simply could not handle the heavier tubs. Hayes knew there had to be a better, more efficient way to get the job done. Working directly with Sullivan Smith, Rice Lake Weighing systems' Retail business Unit Director, Hayes found the solution Little Giant needed.
A Custom Solution
"The Ishida OMNi was the ideal solution," explained Hayes. "But it wasn't as easy as putting a new machine in the backroom."
Working closely with Rice Lake, the new wrapper was specially customized to handle the extra weight. According to Hayes, "no other wrapper on the market can handle a 10 pound package." Through hard work and a steady flow of open communication, the much need solution was created. "We were really partners in creating this custom solution," said Smith.
Wrapped and Ready
With the OMNI-4000 up and running Hayes and his team have been able to re-focus their efforts on projects other than the labor- and time-intensive work of hand-wrapping 10-pound tubs. The OMNi-4000 has helped Little Giant's meat department run more efficiently as welll as save on labor costs. According to Hayes, "What used to be a three-person job is now a job done by just one person operating the wrapper."
Bringing Value Home
Tom Freauff, the retail scale specialist for A-1 Scale commented, "Keep in mind that Ishida helped to customize the OMNi-4000 for Little Giant. That means a lot in today's world of cookie-cutter designs. Work with A-1 Scale and Ishida, and we'll help your operatiion save labor costs and please your customers."
