Marin grocery clerk competes to be America’s ‘best bagger’
A glass jar of pickles and bottles of olive oil and maple syrup. A package of Oreo cookies and a bag of pretzels. Different-sized cans of beans and soup.
These are some of the dozens of items Terra Linda resident Marcus Kiesling uses for his training for the National Grocers Association’s Best Bagger Competition. Kiesling, a checker and courtesy clerk at Nugget Markets in Corte Madera, will represent California in the 39th annual event on Monday in Las Vegas.
Contestants from around the country will bag identical grocery orders containing commonly purchased items as fast as they can, being judged on aspects like time, weight distribution and where items are placed in the bags. Cash prizes will be awarded, including $10,000 to the first-place winner.
Ahead of the competition, Kiesling, who has worked at the Corte Madera store for three years, has been practicing at a special checkout stand tucked away outside the store and with employees at the Novato location.
“I’ve gotten a lot of support. There are a lot of guests who come through, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, we shop here. That’s so cool that you’re representing us.’ And there’s no other company that I’d rather represent. Everyone’s so supportive, and we’re all friends over here,” said Kiesling, who worked at another grocery store a few hours a week as a teen attending Tamalpais High School.
When the 21-year-old started working at Nugget Markets, he had an idea that he was quick at bagging groceries. But didn’t realize how fast he could be until he started participating in the store’s bagging competition.
“The first year I did it, I didn’t win. The second year, I won but unfortunately didn’t win the full competition for Nugget. But this year, I made it past both stages, so here I am. The first step is all the people in our store and then the second step is companywide. Each store will have their own competition, and then they’ll send one person from that store to represent their store in the company contest. There’s a lot of competition here. There are a lot of good baggers,” said Kiesling, who beat out more than a dozen competitors and won the companywide bagging competition in September.
This year, his time was a little over a minute.
“After winning my store one, once I knew that I was going to go and represent my store for the company competition, I was practicing a lot. I work four shifts a week, so I would try to fit in an hour, if I’m lucky, per shift that I’m scheduled. That got me pretty warmed up to it. It also helped having that two years’ prior experience,” he said.
The items are a mixture of boxes, cans, glass jars and other items — some fragile, some not. Through his training, he’s had to learn where things need to go and what will dock him points.
“In my case, I’ve noticed it’s really hard when you get a lot of glass items. It’s a point knocked off if you get glass in the corner of the bag or you get them touching. It’s easy to slip up because you’re moving fast, and then you think it’s protected,” he said.
“Another tricky one is what’s called ‘filler items.’ Those are specific items that you can use to protect the glass from being in the corner or them touching. They do take a point off if you’re not using it as a filler item, like if it’s one of the last items to go in your bag and you just put it right on top. It’s not going to damage anything, but it needs to be used as a filler, so they’ll knock you off a point for that.”
As he heads to Vegas, he’s excited for what’s ahead.
“I’m grateful for the support. I never thought this would happen. It’ll be really fun. Either way, it’s a good trip. And, if you haven’t visited Nugget yet, come on down, say hi and see what world-class bagging looks like,” he says and laughs.