Malatang self-serve fridge daily SOP - fill to 80%, restock at one-third, wilted greens take one of three paths, six checkpoints a day

You are a restaurant operations consultant. I am the store manager of a malatang shop,
and I want our self-serve fridge routine codified into an archivable SOP that a new hire
can follow unsupervised. Produce the full SOP within the framework and thresholds below;
I will fill in my shop's numbers wherever you see [ ].

SOP title: Self-Serve Fridge Daily Management Standard
Applies to: fridge attendant (prep cook doubling / dedicated), manager on duty

1. Opening setup (after open, before first customer)
- Owner: fridge attendant; spot-checked by manager
- Pass standard:
  · Every bin filled to [80%]: overfilled bins get crushed on the bottom by customer
    picking; shallow bins read as empty and turn people off
  · Fixed zones: meatballs in the frozen zone, leafy greens in the humidified zone,
    tofu products and mushrooms each in their own zone - never shuffled to fit a
    delivery's convenience
  · Yesterday's returned stock goes in front, today's fresh from the back - FIFO
    starts at setup, not at close
- On failure: a disorganized bin gets fully reset, and the reset time counts against
  the attendant's review

2. Walk-and-restock (all day, checkpoint style - not standing guard)
- Owner: fridge attendant
- Restock trigger: any bin at [one-third] remaining gets restocked now, not when
  empty; one full round [15 minutes] before the rush window
- Pass standard: bin back to 80% after restocking; restock by swapping in a spare
  basket - never hand-cramming product into a bin mid-rush while customers pick

3. Wilt removal (once early afternoon, once before dinner)
- Removal test: leafy greens gone limp or weeping, cut ends darkened, or items
  scattered beyond recognition by picking - the whole portion comes out
- Three exit paths, judged in order (upstream before downstream):
  1. Presentable, merely limp -> staff meal or the evening [discount tier]
  2. Poor condition but not spoiled -> logged as waste, discarded
  3. Off smell or spoilage suspected -> discard and log immediately; discounting
     is forbidden
- Record: every removal logs item, estimated weight, path; totaled at close

4. FIFO (all day)
- Fresh stock enters bins from the back; old stock shifts forward to the picking face
- Returned stock from close must sell first next day: setup places it front and center

5. Close-down (after last customer)
- Leafy greens: wrap and refrigerate, dated
- Frozen items: still fully frozen, back to the freezer; anything thawed [never
  refreezes] - staff meal tonight or discard, zero exceptions on this line
- Tofu products: end-of-day write-off line, no overnight
- Record: fridge levels copied at close, feeding tomorrow's ordering

6. Temperature and cleaning (logged every [4 hours])
- Fridge temps: frozen and chilled zones logged separately; any out-of-range reading
  is reported as an equipment issue that day, not deferred to tomorrow
- Cleaning: wipe-down of bin faces at close, tongs and tools washed and sanitized,
  drip pads swapped

Output format:
- The SOP body in the six sections above, each containing owner / timing / pass
  standard / failure path; tables welcome
- Close with a one-page "fridge daily check sheet" template (one row per checkpoint,
  checkbox column + exception column) ready to print and tape to the fridge

Constraints:
- No citing specific regulation clause numbers - temperature values and sanitizing
  frequencies stay as [ ] for this shop to set per local requirements; you leave the
  placeholder, not a number
- No invented "industry-standard temperatures"
- "Thawed never refreezes" is written as a zero-exception clause with no "brief,
  small-scale exceptions may be considered" loophole
- No motivational lines or "raise awareness" sentences - every sentence is an action
  or a standard

Why it is written this way

Every fridge-management failure starts with "close enough": full enough, restocked soon enough, still sellable enough. "Close enough" can't be handed over, can't train a new hire, can't be audited - so this SOP replaces every "close enough" with a checkable number: 80% full, restock at one-third, log every 4 hours. The numbers themselves are adjustable per shop and fridge model; what matters is that a number exists, because that's what gives the manager something to spot-check against and the new hire a boundary to stay inside.

"Fill to 80%" is counterintuitive but true: most people pile bins high because abundance sells, but self-serve stock gets picked through, and the pressure of top-layer browsing crushes the bottom layer - leafy greens start weeping within the hour. Meanwhile a shallow bin reads as empty and turns customers off. 80% is the balance point between looking abundant and bruising your stock - exactly the kind of know-how that lives only in a veteran's hands until an SOP writes it down.

The restock trigger at one-third (not at empty) maps back to that two-hour lunch window: restocking from empty costs three to five minutes of motion, and during rush those minutes of empty bin are lost tickets. "Swap a spare basket, never hand-cram" covers hygiene and optics together - a customer watching bare hands stuff greens into the bin loses trust in the entire fridge at once.

"Thawed never refreezes" is the single clause written with no discretion allowed. Thaw-and-refreeze opens a window for bacterial growth; that is a safety line, not a service preference, and leaving a "small, brief exceptions" hole in it leaves a hole in the whole SOP. Every other threshold can bend to the shop; this one can't.

The wilt-removal paths are ordered "upstream before downstream" (staff meal and discount first, waste last) to preserve the last slice of value in limp greens. Tossing them outright is the easiest action, and without a mandated order, easiest always wins.

Variables