Krystal Smith, 24, bagging groceries at the Hannaford store on North Avenue in Burlington.
Posted on 02/15/2011 7:04:29 AM PST by JoeProBono
LAS VEGAS, - A Vermont grocery store worker was crowned the best grocery bagger in the United States at a Las Vegas faceoff with baggers from 20 other states.
Krystal Smith, 24, of Burlington, took home the $10,000 prize and the "Golden Grocery Bag" trophy Monday from the 2011 National Grocers Association Best Bagger Championship, presented by ConAgra Foods.
The baggers were rated on speed, style, attitude, appearance, bag-building technique and weight distribution. Smith finished bagging her assigned groceries in only 38 seconds during the final round.
Second-place finisher Jessica Lewis of Washington earned a $5,000 prize, while runners-up Andrew Hadlock of Utah, Matt Medley of Minnesota and Roland Mattox of Georgia each received $1,000.
"Each year, we hold this competition to shine a light on the baggers and their unending commitment to this industry," National Grocers Association President Peter Larkin said. "And year after year, from the state level to this national stage, they continue to embody the true values of the independent grocer."
Krystal Smith, 24, bagging groceries at the Hannaford store on North Avenue in Burlington.
But can she bag the most dreaded of the processed meats...the canned ham?
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...because baggers can't be choosers!!!
Most of the stores around my area have followed Wal Mart's lead and now use only those plastic bags that are about 2 molecules thick and disintegrate if you try and put more than three cat food cans in them.
Are the Communists allowed to buy their own groceries in the Peoples Republic of Vermont?
It is easy to be a speed bagger when all you have to do is make sure you place the bean sprouts, on top of the Tofu bricks.
They allow paper bags in Vermont??
Wow. There’s a prize for almost everything, it seems. Wish she worked at my local grocery - we have to remind the bagger not to put the eggs in with heavy things, or sideways. Bagger actually did that once, tucked the egg carton along the side of the back, eggs fell out, cracked, made a mess of the handy recyclable cloth bag. Now we put the eggs on the conveyor last, and ask for them to be in a separate bag.
She looks to be at least a 2 bagger.
Good one!
I assume you mean Spam. I love fried Spam sandwiches, but my father wouldn't eat Spam because that was the only meat he got to eat in the Philippines during WW2. He swore that if he survived the war he would never eat it again -- and he didn't.
Same with the tomatoes. They like to put the tomattoes under the canned goods or the bottles of detergent.
Glass or plastic, glass or plastic?
Actually it is a Curious George reference. I have two small kids.
[What's a bag without a square bottom?]
Sadly, the kids today do not get that two minutes of training, and our eggs suffer for it. Now that I am officially an older person, I am not shy about correcting them, and sometimes I even join them in an effort to get my stuff loaded quickly. For some reason, they act like i am intruding on their turf sometimes.
Grocery bagging is an art and a science. Additionally, no two bagging experiences are the same; an infinitely variable, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.
Quite interesting and challenging, if you approach it with the proper atitude.
At root, it is an exercise in hard-won experience, practicality and common sense, which means of course, that it is beyond the limited capabilites of your average Ivy League faculty member.
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