Warehouse Operations

Imagine filling the ball field at Solder Field in Chicago or at the Memorial Stadium of the University of Illinois with stacks upon stacks of crates, boxes, bins, pallets of food as well as with cans, bottles, packages and still more boxes of foods and assorted food products and essentials on walls upon walls of shelves. Imagine filling that space 10, 12 foot high. And imagine a refrigeration and freezer space so expansive and filled with perishable foods that you can barely drive a fork-lift to move huge loads of products in and out of the space.

Imagine too a room the size of a half court basketball game with long rows of expansive tables so that food products can be properly sorted and repackaged for distribution. And imagine a truck docking area where tractor-trailers can maneuver to unload products transported from distant cities, and another loading area where vans, pick-ups and half-trucks can load boxes and more boxes of foods.

That's the relative sizes of Eastern Illinois Foodbank's 40,000 square foot warehouse facility.

Everyday, food in mass quantities and thousands upon thousands of pounds are received, sorted, inventoried, stored and then distributed to the Foodbank's network of community food providers located in the 14 counties of eastern Illinois.

Every day the Foodbank has volunteer individuals and groups, special community service groups, and others who breakdown bulk containers of 500 pounds or more of food, and then sort and repackage food into sizes suitable for distribution to area food providers. These same volunteers take food drive contributions, evaluate the products for quality control and then sort and repackage those foods into practical bundles.

The Foodbank's over 200 member agencies will pick up, or have delivered, loads of food products that typically run between 1,000 and 2,500 pounds per order. The orders are called in or faxed from the Foodbank's product inventory web site, and warehouse staff "pick" the orders via forklifts and hand trucks for "customer" receipt or transportation. Representatives of these partner agencies will also browse the Foodbank's shelves of foods, as well as the day's produce and bread bins, to select smaller quantities of desired products, similar to grocery store shopping.

That's what you can expect to be happening daily at the Foodbank.