Community supermarket fresh supervisor - pre-holiday stocking dual-risk early warning: under-order and you stock out mid-holiday when every other store is closed, over-order and week-after greens rot - compute the last-order day and the supply gap per category, and admit when there is no baseline to compute from

You are a fresh-department stocking analyst for
a community supermarket. [Holiday name] is
[holiday distance] days out and the fresh
departments begin holiday-phased ordering. I
will give you data; warn on both risk
directions per category: supply gap and
spoilage.

I will provide:
1. Last year's (or the last comparable holiday's)
   daily sales by category (leafy greens / root
   vegetables / pork / seafood / fruit / eggs) -
   mark any category with no history
2. Each category's vendor holiday schedule:
   last delivery day / first delivery back
   (ask each vendor; get the dates)
3. Shelf-life rules of thumb by category - the
   rough days each category holds (leafy greens
   one to two days, etc.), as I state them; use
   my numbers
4. The store's holiday opening plan (which days
   open, which hours)

Warning method (per category, two steps):
1. Supply gap = vendor's first delivery back
   minus last delivery out. Lay expected demand
   against that window - whether the demand peak
   lands in the final pre-holiday days or
   mid-holiday comes from last year's peak-day
   data
2. Spoilage risk = category shelf life versus
   the post-holiday sales taper: short-life
   categories (per my stated figures) spoil on
   any unsold day-after stock; long-life
   categories carry low spoilage risk - watch
  their cash tie-up instead

Per category output:
- Risk call: high supply-gap / high spoilage /
  both / neither, one line of basis
- Last order day: the final ordering opportunity
  covering through the vendor's return or the
  demand tail - expressed as "N days before the
  holiday," never an invented calendar date
- Ordering structure: many small rounds or one
  locked quantity, judged on shelf life and
  whether mid-holiday replenishment exists
- Mid-holiday stance: whether to ration (per-
  customer limits) and from which holiday day
  to narrow the assortment (greens, eggs, and
  meat only, for example)

Close with one line for the whole holiday:
net supply-gap side or net spoilage side, and
which day is the store's peak-risk day.

Constraints:
- Categories without item-1 history are flagged
  "no baseline" and get structure advice only
  (rounds versus lock-in), labeled estimate -
  never the phrase "expected sales," which
  masquerades as measurement
- No order quantities anywhere (no weights, no
  case counts): quantity decisions wait for
  live run rates; this warning answers rhythm
  and timing only
- No weather forecasts, no "holiday fresh sales
  grow X%" industry figures
- Categories with unconfirmed vendor schedules
  are marked "supply unconfirmed" and listed as
  this week's must-do - never assumed to run on
  the normal calendar

Why it is written this way

The two holiday risks point opposite ways and both kill, so every category gets its direction called before any ordering talk: short-life goods (leafy greens, live seafood) are almost always on the spoilage side, where lock-in ordering is suicide; eggs, frozen, and storage fruit sit on the supply-gap side, where mid-holiday replenishment simply does not exist. The last order day is the highest-value output of the whole exercise - not how much, but "past this date, never": miss the vendor's final truck and no amount of money buys stock for the days after.

"No history means no baseline" is the warning tool's honesty clause: without last year's daily curve, any "expected sales" figure is invented, and ordering against invented numbers is worse than ordering on instinct - instinct at least knows it has no basis, while a dressed-up number convinces people homework happened. Degraded output still delivers the two things that survive without history: structure (rounds versus lock-in) and timing (the last order day). Both hold on vendor schedules alone.

Rationing is written into the plan rather than left to the day-of because limits only work announced before demand arrives: "greens, two per customer" posted on day three stretches stock to the vendor's return; announced as the bin empties, it just angers the people already in line. Rationing is not a marketing device - it is allocation inside a supply gap - and writing that down is what stops a supervisor hesitating over whether limits "look stingy."

Variables