Meat Cutter

About the Role

Assists customers and cuts meat to specifications for variety, size, quality, and trim for sale. Supports daily operations in meat and seafood departments, promoting consistent and compliant operating conditions to increase customer confidence and loyalty. Provides fresh products, courteous service, and executes merchandising plans while maintaining product levels, shrink control, and sales trends. Values diversity and fosters an inclusive environment.

Responsibilities

• Service (60% of time):
  • Creates a welcoming environment for customers to increase loyalty.
  • Prepares and packages food products, processes customer orders, and handles fresh meats, seafood, random weight items, lunchmeat, frozen food, and salted meats to production standards.
  • Uses peak-time performance cutting lists to cut and trim products per company standards.
  • Properly wraps, weighs, prices, cubes, slices, and grinds meat as needed.
  • Operates department equipment and tools.
  • Fulfills customer requests and special orders.
  • Performs duties of a meat/seafood counter clerk as necessary.
• Leadership (20% of time):
  • Promotes trust and respect among associates through collaboration and teamwork.
  • Communicates company, department, and job-specific information.
  • Adheres to all local, state, and federal laws and company guidelines.
• Financial (10% of time):
  • Stocks and rotates department products to ensure freshness and date control.
  • Restocks and uses supply items efficiently to minimize waste and maintain low supply costs.
  • Receives and breaks down meat deliveries.
  • Maintains a clean, orderly, and hazard-free work area.
  • Monitors inventory and reports discrepancies.
  • Inspects products for quality and freshness, taking appropriate action for substandard items.
  • Utilizes production planning tools to reduce shrink and follows discarding/markdown processes.
  • Ensures proper temperature control per food safety guidelines and maintains temperature logs.
• Compliance/Safety (10% of time):
  • Maintains company standards for safety, food handling, sanitation, and productivity.
  • Adheres to regulatory compliance requirements for food safety, USDA, Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), and Department of Agriculture (DOA).
  • Executes product recalls and withdrawals promptly, securing items from customer access.
  • Reinforces safety programs and reports unsafe conditions to management.
  • Notifies management of customer or employee accidents.
  • Reports safety risks, illegal activity (e.g., robbery, theft, fraud), and ensures adherence to wage and hour policies.
  • Cultivates a culture of safety and ensures all associates receive necessary safety training.
  • Posts Hazardous Assessments and ensures Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is available and used.
  • Reports and assists with remediation of safety hazards, including lockout/tagout of equipment.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Must be 18 years of age or older.
• Authorization to work in the United States or the ability to obtain it.
• Successful completion of pre-employment drug testing and background check.
• Strong customer service skills and exceptional interpersonal, motivational, and communication skills.
• Knowledge of basic math.
• Ability to handle stressful situations.
• Adequate knife handling skills and knife speed.
• Knowledge of cutting, traying, wrapping, and labeling.

Qualifications

• Education: High School diploma or GED preferred.
• Language: English required; Spanish preferred.
• Experience: 0–3 years of relevant experience.

Working Conditions

Physical Demands: Regularly required to stand or walk on various flooring types, utilize manual dexterity, talk, see, hear, smell, and perform repetitive movements with both hands and/or feet. Frequently required to reach at waist level or overhead, carry, push, or lift loads up to 70 lbs. Occasionally required to sit, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, and climb up to 10 ft.

Environmental Factors: May be exposed to indoor, outdoor, cold, freezing, heated, and wet/humid conditions. Frequently exposed to twisting of the back/neck, slippery or cluttered floors, hazardous equipment, and sharp objects. Occasionally exposed to loud noise, skin irritants, nuisance dust, fumes, sprays, hazardous cleaning solutions, and other toxins.

Equipment Used:

• General: Cleaning supplies, office equipment, register, pricing gun, scales, scanner, material handling equipment (racks, carts, pallet jacks, shopping carts).
• Department-Specific: Baler/compactor, hardware tools (ladder, pliers, wire cutters), ice machine, shovel, powered cutting equipment (slicers, saws, grinders), various knives, wrapping equipment, automatic meat wrapper, lobster tanks, box cutter.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Goggles, gloves (cutting, fryer, oven), back brace.

Physical Requirements: Pulling up to 250 lbs; lifting up to 70 lbs.

Schedule

Varied shifts.