RECEIVING, PICKING AND DISTRIBUTING

After the CROPP shareholders's meeting and Organic Valley's tasty lunch of an Italian beef sandwich, pasta and green salads and individual mini key lime pies and ghee fudge, it was time for our Distribution Center tour. 

An impressive array of Organic Valley products distributed from this facility greeted us upon entering the building.. 
  

 
Our group stopped to visit the employee who sits at the three computer monitors with the food orders and their processing and automation on Saturdays. 

one of the three automated cranes

He can watch the three automated cranes that pick up the orders' palettes. If problems occur, they can be viewed on the monitors and most can be corrected from his desk. 

Awesome system as the computer program even decides how each order's palette is packaged according to weight and size.

The average temperature in the warehouse's set at low 30's/lower depending on the particular storage room's products. From cold to colder...

The veggies have addition ice to keep
 them cold.

Viewing the blaster where butter and meat are
frozen within a couple of minutes.

eggs, eggs and more eggs

In the space to the right both shelf sides to the ceiling of the row are loaded with eggs all of which will be emptied and sent on their way within 3 days. Only the amount needed will ever be received here in order to distribute the egg orders accordingly.

DeKalb Farmers Market

Small forklifts with pickers zoom around eventually bring the finished packaged orders to the outgoing platforms where trucks will take them to their future destinations. 

Each label is coded with all the order info and is checked in each step of the process by a small scanner worn on the pickers forearm including info location of each item.  Ironically this completed order will be on its way to where my daughter in Atlanta loved to grocery shop in her old 'hood.  

It was a true educational experience to witness how Organic Valley's Distribution Center works besides having a newfound respect for the employees who work in these cold temps day in and day out.