MCKEEVER REPLACEMENT UNIT QUADRUPLES STAFF

RALPH RAIOLA

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- A commitment to a bigger and more productive bakery has prompted independent supermarket operator McKeever Associates here to quadruple the bakery staff at its newest Price Chopper, a replacement store filling out 92,000 square feet.

The new 5,600-square-foot department is staffed by about 30 employees, a considerable increase over the seven workers who ran the bakery at the former store that was housed across the street until the new store's arrival.

The McKeevers, who own the business, hope the new in-store bakery will progress from being a means of convenience for their customers to a bakery of choice. They said they have positioned the department to compete with local independent bakeries.

"We don't want it to be a typical in-store bakery," said Randy Chassells, director of bakery operations for the independent.

Chassells said he expects the department to produce a "2.5% or higher" chunk of store sales distribution, which is about the contribution of the bakery at the other big Price Chopper in the city, an 89,000-square-foot store also owned by McKeever.

The bakery executive said bakery sales distribution at the new store has so far been more than 1% higher than at the store it replaced a little over two weeks ago. But officials expect the performance numbers will work out in the end.

"The department has almost tripled in size, and the mode of operation went from a frozen operation to a scratch-mix operation," Chassells said.

"The shift to scratch-mix from frozen alone required a doubling in the production staff," Chassells noted. A scratch-mix based operation could pull in gross profits 20% to 30% higher than those from a department based on frozen production, he said. Those profits are generally eaten away by the added labor and production costs, Chassells conceded; but he added, "It's still money we didn't have, and we're giving jobs to people."

For all items made from scratch, the recipes are developed in-store, under the guidance of Chassells. Eight months ago, the in-store bakeries in all the company's stores were running strictly frozen operations.

The bakery carries between 175 and 200 different items, including "new, filled croissants," said co-owner Alan McKeever, who is a partner at the company with his father John and brother Gary.

The new department sports big varieties within some categories. It hopes to crank out about 80 different fresh-baked breads, 60 types of pastries and more than 35 various kinds of cakes. While production has been stepped up in all areas of the bakery, four new product programs are specifically being pushed.

Those are croissants made from scratch and using real butter; 12 varieties of bagels, including cherry, blueberry, poppy seed, raisin and onion-garlic, made from a base; European-style bread made from a base, with eight varieties; and dessert cakes, which are also made from a base.

Since the store opened, about four bakery employees left, which Chassells said is expected. The current staff will most likely shrink to about 18 when all is said and done, he noted. Any extra employees will be used in the department's sampling display program.