LEWISTON – Heidi-Sue Stuart bagged cans with bottles and a box of taco shells, scooping them up in a plastic Shaw’s bag while a row of grocery experts, some with clipboards, watched and listened.

“It looks like a firing squad,” whispered a passing customer.

The group, three judges and a cluster of administrators, gathered Friday to choose the best cashier-bagger team from Maine’s 22 Shaw’s Supermarkets.

They watched as Stuart and her teammate, checker Irene Chasse, rang up customers’ food, tallied their coupons and bagged their items, often joking with the customers who came in.

“We’re always like this,” said Stuart, who once swept around her spot beside the counter to help a woman unload her groceries from an overflowing cart. “It’s how we act every day.”

The team represented the Lewiston store, chosen for the contest because it is new and centrally located to the many stores.

“I think we did awesome,” Chasse said. “Everyone walked away smiling.”

It’s serious stuff, however.

Friday’s event, titled “Challenge 2004: Service First,” is part of a nationwide effort to choose the best team in the Albertsons grocery store chain. The Idaho-based company bought Shaw’s earlier this year.

The winners from district and regional competitions in August will compete for the national title in Las Vegas this fall.

Here, contestants were divided into four heats, taking over the registers from the store’s usual workers. Each heat lasted about 50 minutes, long enough for the judges to watch every team.

And every team waited on real customers, some of whom were perplexed by the attention.

“People are getting first-class treatment today,” said Larry Laderbush, Shaw’s area director for Maine.

Teams were graded on product handling, dress code compliance, thank-yous to customers and what judges called “bag utilization,” making sure purchased items were handled efficiently, safely and gently. In all, the pairs were graded on 12 factors, each with an assigned number of points.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” said Brenda Lyman, a judge who watched the different teams as they began showing off their talents.

“They’re all so good,” she said. “You have to look for the one thing that sets them apart.”

Of course, Chasse had no trouble standing out.

A Shaw’s cashier for 23 years, she wore a big, blue button that read, “Je parle francais,” meaning, “I speak French.”

“Hello, Madame,” Chasse said, greeting women as they wheeled up to her register, many buying the sale-priced pork loins, which she double-bagged and handed to Strout with a cordial, “Here’s your baby.”

The pair have worked together a long time. Chasse began at Shaw’s when it was at the Promenade Mall, where a Staples store is now housed. And when Stuart started 19 years ago, Chasse trained her.

“We work together naturally,” Stuart said. “We each know what the other one is going to do.”

It wasn’t enough to win, though.

A Freeport team, checker Brian Grindle and bagger Evan Libby, captured first place. Second went to checker Charlene Hill and bagger Bonnie Tapley from Sanford. Third place was awarded to checker Hilary Corbeau and bagger Allison Gazzelloni from the North Windham store.

The first- and second-place winners will move on to a regional contest in Concord Heights, N.H., on Aug. 13.