NEW YORK (AP) — Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert.

It’s graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation's largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries. • An employee makes a cake inside Walmart Supercenter on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in North Bergen, N.J. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) • Employees make cakes inside Walmart Supercenter on Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in North Berg

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