Fresh-food supervisor at a neighborhood store - the evening closing SOP - freshen, tag, announce, bundle, record, and close the day in one line

You are the operations advisor for a neighborhood fresh-food store. Turn
the evening close into an archivable, wall-mountable SOP. It will hang
in the fresh section; whoever is on shift follows it without asking
anyone.

Our store (I will fill in):
- Closing time X; X people on the evening shift, X of them covering
  fresh (at most stores: one)
- Markdown tags: printer / handwritten / call-it-out - pick one
- Whether we have a customer group chat (if yes: does a closing-day
  announcement get sent, and by whom)

The SOP timeline is five fixed steps. Each step must state: time
window / who (if staff is thin, write "the fresh person on shift") /
what to do / the pass standard - a check that is one glance and
unambiguous:

1. 5 p.m. - Freshen and consolidate: strip yellow leaves and bruised
   fruit, tie smaller bundles, merge half-stacks into one full stack,
   overflow to the bargain bin
   - Pass: the main display face has no gaps, and a handful grabbed
     anywhere touches no spoiled leaf
2. 5:30 p.m. - Tag markdowns per the afternoon's verdicts. Every tag
   carries three elements: original price (struck through but legible),
   markdown price, valid until what time
   - Pass: three tags picked at random have all three elements, and
     each tag matches the item under it
3. By 6 p.m. - Closing announcement to the group chat (stores that
   have one): only the 2-3 items actually marked down, with the cutoff
   time; one fixed sender
   - Pass: sent before 6 p.m., three lines or fewer
4. 60 minutes before close - switch to bundling: remaining markdown
   items take no further cut; "buy X get Y" instead
   - Pass: no new lower price tag appears in the bargain bin
5. 30 minutes before close - Spoilage log: only what truly cannot be
   sold. Three fields per line - category, quantity, cause (one
   specific phrase). The day is not closed until it is written
   - Pass: no cause reads "looked iffy"; every cause is as specific
     as "green onions, stems gone soft" or "bag torn"

Then one final section, "Closing log" - the most important step of the
whole SOP:
- Two minutes after close, three lines: how many items were marked
  down today, what time each sold out, and one line on why any item
  that did not
- These three lines are the input to tomorrow afternoon's markdown
  call. They are never skipped

Writing rules:
- The whole SOP fits one sheet, timeline readable from 5 feet on a wall
- No "use judgment" or "discount as needed" - every step must be
  checkable as done or not done
- Produce two versions, with and without a group chat (steps 2-4
  connect differently)

Do not:
- Include goal slogans like "reduce shrink, improve efficiency" - an
  SOP contains actions only
- Add enforcement-theater like "strictly supervise execution" - with a
  crew this small, the SOP's teeth are one-glance pass standards, not
  supervision

Why it is written this way

Daily clearance is where a neighborhood store's shrink is decided, and most stores have no process there: whoever is free looks around, marks down what offends the eye, at a depth the mood suggests. Mood-driven clearance loses at both ends - cut deep and you donate margin, skip it and the crate tips into the bin. The value of this SOP is not any single step; it is that a fixed order and fixed standards become comparable week over week.

The pass standard is each step's soul. A checklist without standards merely repeats the actions; with "a handful anywhere touches no spoiled leaf" and "three random tags carry all three elements," the SOP can audit itself. A small store has no inspection role - the standard must be something the person on shift can verify in passing.

Step 4, switching to bundling, closes a specific trap: markdowns that keep sinking teach customers to wait. Neighborhood customers come daily; show them "cheaper after dark" a few nights running and daytime full-price sales stall. Freezing the price and switching to "buy X get Y" in the last hour separates the two goals - the volume clears, the price architecture survives.

The three-line closing log looks optional and is actually the loop closer: it is the only real input to tomorrow afternoon's markdown call (a separate prompt on this site). Without it, tomorrow's call reverts to gut feel and the SOP is just a sheet of paper on a wall. That is why it is written as a never-skipped final step, not a "recommended note" - it is exactly the step that gets dropped first on a busy night unless the SOP says otherwise.

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