Skills were tested, items were scanned, and cheeriness was scrutinised at the Checker of the Year competition on Wednesday night.

In total more than 120 checkout operators from Bay of Plenty New World and PAK'nSAVE stores tested their skills against each other onstage at Baycourt with the hope of ultimately taking out the title of Foodstuffs North Island Checker of Year.

From left: New World Brookfield's Eden Arkwright (third place), New World Gate Pa's Ainsley Meynell (first place) and New World Brookfield's Holly Fillipo (second place). Supplied Photo

Jodi Ryan, 18, and Holly Filipo, 18, were two of the competitors that took to their stations and competed in the contest last night. Both girls work at New World Brookfield and last night's competition was their fourth time showing their skills.

The checkers were judged by a team of eight senior Foodstuffs staff on their speed, presentation, customer service and accuracy as they scanned 30 items as fast as possible, while also staying friendly and composed.

Holly made it in the top three checkers last night, along with Eden Arkwright who also works at New World Brookfield.

Holly says she had thought about strategy prior to the competition last night.

'Just gonna do my best and think about my customer service more than my speed because that's one of the main things [the judges] look for.”

Both Jodi and Holly were concerned about what Holly called ‘non-scanners' – one item out of the 30 to be scanned would not scan correctly.

'In the competition we have to scan 30 items so one of them won't scan so we have to type the barcode in,” says Jodi.

'That's what I'm a little bit nervous about because sometimes one of the buttons won't work very well.”

Holly has worked at New World Brookfield for about five months now, and has past experience working in a Rotorua supermarket.

'Just a little bit [nervous]. It's a bit crazy because we do it every day but when it comes to the competition you get your nerves up,” she says.

The top three checkers were Ainsley Meynell from New World Gate Pa, Holly Fillipo from New World Brookfield and Eden Arkwright from New World Brookfield.

New World Brookfield Checkout Manager Sade LeMon says their team has a mock Checker of the Year event in-store to select the team and to give them a taste of what the pressure will be like on the night.

'The Checker of the Year competition raises our team's spirit and morale. It is great to recognise and reward our checkers' who consistently work hard.”

There are 10 regional Checker of the Year competitions across the North Island throughout June and July, with mystery shoppers testing each region's winner to determine one overall North Island Checker of the Year winner and two runners-up, which will be announced at the Foodstuffs North Island Excellence Awards on 26 November.

Brookfield New World customer Pam Drysdale with checkout operators Jodi Ryan and Holly Filipo. Photo: Chris Callinan.