Eli Madrigal started Rancho Markets in 2006 with a single 4,300-square-foot store and seven employees. Twenty years later, the Utah grocery chain has more than 700 employees, and every store is built around a full-service carnicería.
"We start fresh every single day," Eli says. "We don't buy prepackaged meats. We do it all in-house." Thin cuts go on the slicer. Anything with bone, or a thicker cut, goes on the bandsaw.
Searching for a safer bandsaw
Cutting fresh meat every day means a lot of hours on a bandsaw. Eli had accidents in her stores in the past, and they kept her up at night.
"My worry of the day is always the safety of my employees, especially the butchers."
She tried other safety saws first. Her butchers rejected them: the machines were safe, but they didn't do the job. Then, at a meat industry show, she saw the Guardian. "It immediately caught my attention," she says. "Even before they showed me all the benefits of the saw, I saw it and immediately felt that it was the right equipment for my company."
Winning over the butchers
Not everyone was convinced on day one. Rancho's butchers said the new saw was too slow and that they could work faster the old way. Eli held firm, and after a few days of training they found it didn't slow them down at all.
"If you ask me now, they cannot live without them. They will refuse to do any cuts if the Guardian is not working."
New stores take about three days to learn how to run, assemble and clean the saw. Butchers can switch the on-screen instructions between English, Spanish and other languages. Guardian's 3D Vision Technology watches the operator's gloved hands and stops the blade before they can touch it. Since Rancho put Guardian Lite bandsaws in its stores, it has had zero bandsaw accidents.
Cheaper than a lawsuit
A Guardian costs more than a traditional meat saw. Eli still ordered one for every store, because she compared it with the cost of a lawsuit and an OSHA investigation, not with the price of an old saw.
Since then, Rancho's accidents have fallen from 30 to four a year across the company, none of them cuts in the meat department, and its workers' comp insurance costs have come down with them.
"A lawsuit in a meat department is more costly than the value of a Guardian machine. If you don't have the budget, look for the budget, because in the end the insurance costs, workers' comp, or OSHA will take it from somewhere."
Watch the full Rancho Markets story below, or see what a bandsaw accident really costs.
