Virtually all celery that is bought as naked stalks is prepared

 at the retail store level. Several firms indicated that they had

 done some sleeping at the warehouse level in recent years, but all

 had discontinued the practice when interviewed.

 Produce department personnel at the store level normally trim

 the stalk butts and tops, remove loose or damaged ribs, and band or

 sleeve it. Exact preparation time could not be accurately ascertained

 from talking to executives or store employees, but estimates ranged

 from 5 to 15 minutes per crate, depending on the arrival condition of

 the celery. The source of the celery was not generally viewed as an

 important factor influencing preparation time.


 Retail packaging of whole stalks


 Over half of the firms interviewed exhibited flexibility in mer-

chandising either banded or sleeved celery (Table 16). Typically,

stores would not have both kinds of packages simultaneously. Several

said that banding was used when turnover was high, but sleeping was

used (either pre-sleeved or sleeved at the store) when turnover was

slow. However, others said that pre-sleeved celery was used for high-

produce volume sales periods, particularly around holidays to ease

labor shortages. Some firms have stores that use primarily banded

and other stores that tend to retail sleeved celery.

 Two Philadelphia firms use banded celery exclusively. One was

classified as a large-volume celery retailer and the other classified

as small. One medium-volume retailer in Boston and one large-volume

retailer in Detroit were found to retail banded celery exclusively