High school senior taking fast-paced grocery bagging techniques to national contest
Speed, that’s a big part of it
Speed, that’s a big part of it
Speed, that’s a big part of it
Speed, that’s a big part of it.
Watching Kaylin Clancy sack groceries, you’d think she had an extra arm. That’s how fast she packs away groceries when checking out.
It doesn’t matter if it’s paper or plastic, but that speed needs order.
“You can’t put eggs on the bottom. That would be a bad idea,” Clancy said.
That’s important for a couple of reasons.
One, you don’t want to get home from the grocery store with shattered eggs. Two, Clancy is in San Diego for the National Best Bagger Contest, part of the National Grocers Association annual trade show.
Clancy, a senior at Liberty North High School, will represent Missouri at the contest, having won the state competition a few weeks ago.
Not long after she started working at Price Chopper in 2017, one of her bosses noticed she had a knack for sacking grocery bags. He convinced her to enter a local contest.
“I was just, 'Oh, like, I can do this! This is super easy,'" Clancy said. "And then you get in to competition and you’re, like, 'Oh, this is way harder than anybody thinks it is.'”
But the more she worked at it, the better she became, all while developing a taste for the competition. Now, she gets to measure up against the fastest grocery bag sackers from across the country.
“It’s kind of like an Olympic sport,” Clancy said. “You’re going and you are competing against the best. Winning would be everything.”
The contestants fill three reusable-style grocery bags with a variety of food items. The faster the sacks are filled, the better. But your organization counts, which goes back to making sure the eggs are on top. The way the contest is scored, sackers earn more points for equally distributing the weight of the groceries across the three bags and doing so while following a specific set of rules on what gets stacked where.
“You have to make sure the boxes and cans are upright,” Clancy said.
Points are deducted if judges find cans stacked on top of cans. Another no-no: glass bottles and jars stacked next to one another without something in between, such as a bag of sunflower seeds.
But watching Clancy work, most of what you appreciate is her speed.
Clancy will find out Monday night if she’s got the goods on both sacking specialties with the eggs on top.