Woolworths has reportedly decided to axe a major feature of its supermarkets, meaning around 500 workers could soon be out of the job.
Close to 500 Woolworths employees could soon be left jobless after the supermarket chain reportedly decided to shut down one of its major features.
Woolworths has decided to close 250 of its 300 in-store butchers, meaning hundreds roles will axed in the process.
This means the majority of stores will soon only offer pre-packaged meat products, with the decision following a decline in the demand for the in-store butchers.
A Woolworths spokesperson told news.com.au the decision followed a review into the sales from the butcheries.
“We’ve recently conducted a review into our in-store butcher shops and found that they account for just 4 per cent of meat sales as customers continue to move towards our more convenient pre-packaged options,” the spokesperson said.
“We have around 1000 supermarkets, and about 300 currently have butcher shops. We’ve made the difficult decision to close the majority of our remaining butcher counters over the coming months, with the exception of 50 stores where they are supported by the necessary customer demand.”
In the stores that have both butcher shops and pre-packaged meat options, only around 10 per cent of customers purchase buy their meat over the counter.
Customer demand for butcher shops is significantly lower than other counters such as seafood, deli and bakery.
By March this year, 250 of the in-store butcher shops will close, resulting in 489 roles coming to an end, including 420 trade qualified butchers and 69 skilled non-trade workers.
The supermarket giant said it “deeply regrets” the impact this decision will have on the team members who work in the butcher shops across the country.
“We’re very grateful for the contribution these team members have made and we’ll be offering redeployment to another role for those who are interested, or re-employment support for those who leave the business,” the spokesperson said.
Around 200 team members who work some hours in the butcher shop as well as other parts of the store will have their rosters adjusted to work solely in other departments.
The 50 butcher shops that will remain open will be in specific areas where demand is higher.
Moving forward, operations in these stores will be streamlined to reduce the amount of on-site processing and remove the use of bandsaws and mincers.
“Across all stores, we’ll continue to offer our customers high-quality fresh meat through our wide selection of pre-cut case-ready meats that are conveniently packaged to pick up on the go,” the Woolworths spokesperson said.
This follows a similar move from Coles in 2021 where the supermarket scrapped its in-store butcher service in favour of pre-packaged meat.
The decision was made at the end of August, with just one third of the axed butchers remaining with the company while the rest took the offered redundancy package.
A Coles spokesperson said in recent years it has invested in state-of-the-art facilities and worked with supplier partners to produce retail-ready fresh meat.
The decision was made at the end of August, with just one third of the axed butchers remaining with the company while the rest took the offered redundancy package.
A Coles spokesperson said in recent years it has invested in state-of-the-art facilities and worked with supplier partners to produce retail-ready fresh meat.
“To help us meet the changing needs of our customers, we are aligning our meat operating models nationally in our stores, so that we can consistently deliver high-quality retail ready meat for our customers whenever they want to shop,” they told news.com.au at the time
“The change will mean our fresh meat range will be supplied to stores as retail-ready products and will not require any preparation to be carried out in-store before being placed on the shelves of our meat fridges for customers to buy.”
Extracted from News.com.au
