LAYTON—MaKenzie Wood started as a bagger at Fresh Market in Layton when she was 15. Five years later, she used her years of experience to compete in the National Grocers Association’s Best Bagger Competition held in Las Vegas earlier this month. Wood took second place and received a $5,000 cash prize. To qualify for the National competition, Wood competed in the Utah Food Industry Association’s Best Bagger Competition where she took first place.

“I was introduced to this bagging competition through my manager, Desiree,” said Wood. “She said ‘do you want to go and compete at our company competition? It’s lots of fun and you might win some money.’”

The company picks 10 people to go to the state competition, she said. “So if you place in the top 10 spots from our company you get to go to the state competition.” Wood won the state competition in 2024.

“For the national competition they pick one person randomly from each state to be there,” said Wood. “I think this year only 18 other states competed so they kind of split us into a group of 54 and then into other groups of four.”

They have five check stands, she said. “They tell you when to go up and you see what your items are when you get up on stage. Then you just bag them. You want to stay under 53 seconds for full points because every couple of seconds after that points are deducted for time.”

Participants are judged in four areas: speed (10 points), proper bag-building technique (10 points), distribution of weight between bags (5 points) and style, attitude and appearance (5 points).

Wood said she did a lot of practicing before the competition. “Bagging at home I”d pick out different items, so a random assortment, because you never know what’s going to be at the competition. So it’s a surprise of what you’ll see.”

Then Wood said she laid it out on the table. “Then you have your three bags and you want to try and distribute all of your items in your three bags to get to the closest weights possible because they deduct points if one bag is a lot heavier than another bag.”

A lot of the items they switch out most frequently in the competition are things like soda items or other heavier items, she said. “Those weights vary from like a 2-liter plastic bottle to a six pack of bottles. Those two are completely different weights and that can really throw you off if you haven’t practiced with both.”

It was pretty nerve-wracking on the day of the competition, she said. “The day before I just tried to stay as calm as possible and the morning of, I practiced before the competition so I was kind of in my groove and ready to bag. When I got up on stage I was just like ‘OK, I’ve got this. I can do this.’ I was just trying to pump myself up.”

Wood said her favorite thing about working at a grocery store is the community engagement. “I like getting to know the people in my community and even the people that just come in from other states and other countries.”

It’s fantastic to hear a bunch of different stories, she said. “We do have quite a few customers that just give us little tidbits of their life and it’s been fun to learn about new people and the people I get to work with are just awesome.”

Wood is attending Weber State University studying criminal justice with a concentration on crime scene investigation. That’s the path she wants to follow for a career but in the meantime she’ll keep bagging her way to the top.