Fruit shop stock clerk - cut-fruit prep and sale SOP - what may be cut, how long it sells, how the label reads

You are a fruit shop operations consultant. Write "cut fruit" as an
archivable one-page SOP. Cut fruit is the shop's core value-add - bruised
and overripe fruit sold cut turns write-offs into margin - and its most
food-safety-sensitive corner. The SOP's goal: cut confidently, cut
correctly, cut traceably.

Input I will give you:
- The items we cut (watermelon, pineapple, melon, dragon fruit and the like)
- Who cuts (dedicated person / stock clerks rotate) and how many batches
  a day
- Whether there is a separate prep station and a refrigerated display case

Five sections:

[1. Raw material admission: what may and may not be cut]
- May be cut: bruised but sound inside; overripe but no mold; too ugly
  to sell whole
- May never be cut (red lines, in ink):
  * Anything with mold - cutting the mold off does not help; the hyphae
    grow inward and the visible patch is only the surface
  * Weeping, off-smelling, fermenting fruit
  * Anything already booked as a write-off - cutting written-off stock
    back into sale corrupts both ledgers; decide "cut or write off"
    before booking, never after

[2. Hygiene (every line is an action)]
- Knives and boards: cut-fruit only, separate from whole-fruit prep;
  sanitized before every batch (method left as a variable)
- Hands: single-use gloves; touch a peel, a door handle, your face
  mid-batch - change gloves
- Station: positioned away from the trash and the D-grade holding spot

[3. Prep and holding]
- Yield: how many finished portions one fruit yields - measured for real
  during week one, recorded in a table, and prep follows the table from
  then on; unmeasured, "how many cups per watermelon" stays guesswork
  forever
- Batch size: driven by the last three days of cut-fruit sales - never by
  "the case still has space." Space-thinking is the origin of expired
  cut-fruit write-offs
- Cut, film, into the refrigerated case immediately; room-temperature
  display is not permitted (in ink)

[4. Labels (hard rule)]
- Every portion carries three things: make time (to the hour), discard
  time (make time + shelf life per item, left as a variable), price
- At discard time, unsold portions come off the shelf into markdown or
  write-off - relabeling for a longer life is forbidden; one relabel and
  every timestamp in the case stops meaning anything

[5. Daily log]
- Cut-fruit log: raw material (item / quantity / source - routine prep or
  freshness-walk conversion) / portions made / sold / expired write-offs.
  Conversions flagged separately - month-end, "how much shrink did cut
  fruit rescue" is answered from that one column

Prohibitions:
- No "mind hygiene" / "keep it fresh" - sentences without an action do
  not enter the SOP
- Shelf-life numbers stay variables; "discard on time, never relabel"
  is fixed
- No packaging machines or label printers - written for hand-sticker
  execution

Why it is written this way

Raw-material admission leads the SOP because every food-safety risk in cut fruit is decided the moment the raw fruit is chosen. Each red line answers a real belief: the mold line rebuts the folk wisdom of "cut off the bad part" - hyphae run deep and the visible patch is only its flag; the write-off line protects the books - cutting booked stock back into sale distorts both the shrink and the sales ledgers, and month-end becomes archaeology. Confidence at the cutting board starts with a list of what never reaches it.

"Batch size by sales, not shelf space" gets its own line because it names the most common behavioral drift: fill the empty case, look diligent, book the cost as expired write-offs. The line quietly redefines diligence - preparing to the trailing three-day sales average is the diligent move; filling the case is manufacturing tomorrow's loss.

The heaviest words in the label section are "never relabel." A timestamp's entire value is credibility; one re-sticker converts labels from promise to decoration, and one customer who catches it - or buys the relabeled portion - collapses the premium of the whole case. That is why "discard on time" is written in ink while the hours themselves stay variables: cooling equipment differs shop to shop and four versus six hours can be discussed; meaning what the label says cannot.

The separately flagged conversions in the log exist for one month-end question: "how much shrink did the cut-fruit line rescue, and how much expired loss did it create?" Without that column, whether cut fruit is a business or a hobby stays a matter of feeling.

Variables