Retail Grocery Stores Research Articles

Egg Shell Damage in Retail Channels

Egg shell damage in retail channels was evaluated at three locations: the processing plant, the wholesale warehouse and the retail grocery store. Shell damage was found to increase as eggs moved from place to place. A greater increase in shell damage was found between the processing plant and the warehouse than between the warehouse and the retail store.

Further studies on staphylococci in meats. III. Occurrence and characteristics of coagulase-positive strains from a variety of nonfrozen market cuts.

From 34 retail grocery stores and meat markets, 209 samples of nonfrozen meats were obtained and analyzed for coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus, employing six selective media. Sixty-seven (38.7%) of 173 samples obtained from 27 stores yielded S. aureus. No coagulase-positive S. aureus was isolated from 36 samples obtained from 7 of the stores. The 67 meats yielded 272 isolates from 10 different kinds of meats. There were 162 physiological strains represented when classified by store and 36 strains classified without regard to store of origin. The larger stores yielded fewer meats with staphylococci than the smaller stores. The meats from which S. aureus was recovered in the order of frequency of percentage recovery are as follows: chicken, pork liver, fish, spiced ham, round beef steak, hamburger, beef liver, pork chops, veal steak, and lamb chops. The following seven meats did not yield staphylococci: bologna, shucked oysters, olive and pickle loaf, salami, wieners, and chopped ham. Eighty-eight per cent of the isolates produced pigment, 85% were gelatinase positive, only 1 strain failed to form a precipitate on egg yolk agar, 92% formed deoxyribonuclease, 87% produced bound coagulase, 91% produced the alpha-hemolysin, 70% the delta-, 22% the beta-, and 6% were nil in this regard. The isolates are compared with hospital and other food strains, and their possible source in the meats is discussed.

Further Studies on Staphylococci in Meats, 12

From 34 retail grocery stores and meat markets, 209 samples of nonfrozen meats were obtained and analyzed for coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus, employing six selective media. Sixty-seven (38.7%) of 173 samples obtained from 27 stores yielded S. aureus. No coagulase-positive S. aureus was isolated from 36 samples obtained from 7 of the stores. The 67 meats yielded 272 isolates from 10 different kinds of meats. There were 162 physiological strains represented when classified by store and 36 strains classified without regard to store of origin. The larger stores yielded fewer meats with staphylococci than the smaller stores. The meats from which S. aureus was recovered in the order of frequency of percentage recovery are as follows: chicken, pork liver, fish, spiced ham, round beef steak, hamburger, beef liver, pork chops, veal steak, and lamb chops. The following seven meats did not yield staphylococci: bologna, shucked oysters, olive and pickle loaf, salami, wieners, and chopped ham. Eighty-eight per cent of the isolates produced pigment, 85% were gelatinase positive, only 1 strain failed to form a precipitate on egg yolk agar, 92% formed deoxyribonuclease, 87% produced bound coagulase, 91% produced the alpha-hemolysin, 70% the delta-, 22% the beta-, and 6% were nil in this regard. The isolates are compared with hospital and other food strains, and their possible source in the meats is discussed.

Relationships Between the Numbers of Chain and Individually Owned Grocery Stores in Fort Wayne

MONG the questions which have assumed important positions in public interest during the past few years none has been more controversial in character than the chain-store issue. Some consider the advent of the chain system of merchandising as a great improvement in marketing. Others believe that this system is a menace to public freedom and initiative. The objective in conducting the present study is to throw some light upon the effect of chain grocery stores on the number of individually owned retail grocery stores in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The reader is left free to judge the extent to which this has been accomplished. Among previous retail mortality studies may be mentioned one conducted in Louisville, Kentucky, by Dr. Paul C. Olsen; another was made in Buffalo, New York, by Professor E. D. McGarry. The former indicated that individual grocers in Louisville entered business, stayed in business, and went out of business from I920 to I929 in virtually the same proportions as in the period from i890 to i899. Professor McGarry's analysis showed that 6o per cent, 43.8 per cent, 34.5 per cent, and 26.6 per cent of the entrants into the grocery, shoe, hardware, and drug businesses, respectively, in Buffalo between i9i8 and I928 withdrew before they had operated one year.

Book Review:Operating Expenses in Retail Grocery Stores in Nebraska in 1921. The Committee on Business Research, University of Nebraska

Book Review:Operating Expenses in Retail Grocery Stores in Nebraska in 1921. The Committee on Business Research, University of Nebraska

Types of Arithmetic Needed in Certain Types of Salesmanship

The investigation here reported was undertaken in an attempt to gain a reliable index of the type of arithmetic needed by the clerk in selling goods and by the consuming public in purchasing goods. The problem consists in the analysis of 4,661 bills of sale, representing a total value of $41,560o.67, from three large stores in the city of Seattle, Washington-a wholesale and retail hardware store, a department store, and a wholesale and retail grocery store. Table I shows the distribution of the bills and their value.

The Consumers' Coöperative Movement in Chicago

Much has been said and written in regard to the high cost of living. Marvelous and many are the theories advanced to cheapen table necessities. Ordinarily a topic so much discussed would have become stale long ago but this one seems ever new. Out of it all, however, will soon come some workable plan that will enable consumers to get together in a spirit of helpfulness and organize for mutual protection. People well informed have no fight to make with the average run of middlemen. A very large percentage of them are progressive citizens and honest to the core. They have been and still are performing a great service, and but few of them are getting rich. Their multiplicity, however, is largely responsible for the high cost of living today, and in addition to this they are hampered by a clumsy, antiquated, wasteful system of distribution. It is this entire system that we are warring against, and it must eventually be stored away in the world's garret among other second-hand and discarded methods of commerce. The following form of illustration is old, but the stage setting here is new. Woodlawn is a part of Chicago, a resident district, and yet, in a section seven blocks long and three blocks wide there are 35 retail grocery stores, meat markets and delicatessens, all told. It does not take any great stretch of the imagination to see the endless and enormous expense including clerk hire, telephones, rentals, interest on investment, delivery service, insurance and a dozen other items, all of which the consumer must pay. I live in a small apartment building in Woodlawn, and there are at least seven or eight difierent grocery and market wagons, belonging to as many different firms, that deliver goods at that building from one to three times daily. This is not economy-it is burning money. One cooperative grocery and meat market combined located anywhere in the territory mentioned could easily handle all the business