How Grocers Can Create a Culture of Clean

In-store cleaning can be a relatively sticky subject for grocers of all shapes and sizes, because, while everyone knows how important it is, it tends to slip down the priority list. Many grocers are also of the mindset that they’re OK being mediocre when it comes to store cleanliness.

“We would say you should not be OK just being OK,” asserts Allen Randolph, VP of business development at Hamilton, Ohio-based Kaivac. Randolph recognizes that cleaning is often thought of as a necessary evil in the food retail industry, and also that many grocers realize that their systems are broken, but they simply don’t know how to fix the problem.

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Randolph and his colleague Mike Perazzo, EVP of sales at Kaivac, are working to change the conversation around cleaning in an effort to help create clean, fresh and safe environments for grocery shoppers and employees alike.

Why A Culture of Clean Matters

Perazzo says that Kaivac is trying to help grocers create a “culture of clean” within their businesses because the company knows firsthand that food retail is an extremely competitive space. 

“Creating those first impressions and those lasting impressions to build your customer loyalty all revolves around the experience that you have with that brand,” he explains. “No matter what, cleaning is going to play a role in that.”

Randolph notes that store cleanliness ties directly to revenue and profit, pointing to the fact that cleaning stores correctly from the start can lead to more than 30% less cost and labor than doing it the wrong way. While creating a true culture of clean from the top down can be a struggle, Perazzo believes grocers have the right intent when it comes to cleaning their stores, but they need to work toward tying their vision to the correct execution. 

“That’s why you can’t solve the problem unless you think about the problem differently,” Randolph says. “How do you communicate and execute change management at scale?”

Keeping Employee Education at the Forefront

Beyond simply enacting new hardware and cleaning solutions, Perazzo and Randolph also stress the importance of properly and thoroughly training employees to do the work necessary to keep stores truly clean. “Training has to be at the forefront of everything you’re doing,” Perazzo emphasizes, “and that training needs to be created and brought down into the reality of the environment.”

That reality, according to Perazzo, includes high turnover, language barriers and many other issues pertaining to the front-line grocery employees that are ultimately responsible for keeping stores, and the multimillion-dollar systems within them, clean. As a result, Kaivac is finding ways to meet those employees where they are to provide the right types of training for its cleaning solutions — including the use of artificial intelligence and even the creation of TikTok-style videos.

“What we’re trying to do is provide that training in as many ways possible, but also trying to adjust that training to our audience and give it to them in a way that’s fast, that’s fun, that’s friendly, that they can understand in their own language, and in a way for them to experience that they can have a voice,” Perazzo explains.

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One avenue for such education is KaiTutor, a proprietary personal video trainer that uses a play-pause-practice method to make training easy, accessible and inexpensive. The touchscreen units, which are attached to several of Kaivac’s machines, let workers learn at their own pace and offer a consistent form of training for every associate. 

Additionally, the company’s KaiNect app serves as a dynamic training, troubleshooting and service platform that lives on any smartphone.

Bringing It Full Circle

This all leads to why Perazzo and Randolph started the conversation around a culture of clean in the first place. “You’ve got to care,” Perazzo stresses. “You can’t just talk about it in the boardroom, and you can’t just hope it will happen. You have to make it happen every day.”

When it comes to a Kaivac cleaning solution that Perazzo believes should be evaluated by all grocery brands, he points to the company’s Cooler Case Cleaner, which includes a specially designed indoor pressure washer, a wet vacuum, and an ergonomic wand for hands-free cleaning. While they would be easy to overlook, Perazzo makes the argument that coolers in general are the second-largest investment that retailers make beyond the physical structure of their building, and this type of equipment encompasses everything from electricity and copper wiring to gas lines and plenum fans.

Not only are clean, well-kept coolers an important point of differentiation for grocers, but the multimillion-dollar equipment should be treated and cleaned in a way that protects the investment. That includes offering proper and effective training to the front-line employees responsible for their upkeep. The cleaning company’s spill response system is another solution that can help grocers control risk while reacting to cleaning needs in a quick, safe and efficient way that goes far beyond the standard kitty litter, paper towels and Shop-Vac still being employed by many grocers.

“It’s customer impact, it’s liability, it’s cost, it’s revenue,” Randolph contends. “It’s so easy.”