Grace Under Pressure (Sometimes It's Hard to Do)

Well I don't know I've not heard of GFS having long wait times to unload and outrageous lumper fee's anytime I've been to the receiving dock at our warehouse I check the load in on the computer in the receiving office and the nice woman takes the paper work and mostly I see GFS warehouse staffers unloading or checking things in and making sure the cold chain is kept in tact and all that.

GFS has procedures and stuff for receiving, now every place is different and things are done differently now, back in the late 1980s and entire 1990s the company what set it apart from the competition was A. They were smaller the Sysco and US Foods wasn't even around then so they were smaller then Sysco, but just a tad bigger then the other regional companies. What it was, was and it was actually very interesting the way the Gordon's went about things, they wanted to be different and different in a good way.

Bascially they were interested in being trail blazers and setting new standards and doing things opposite of what the competition did. Now granted company has grown a lot since 1996 and some of the people who were in charge back in those days have moved on and I don't mean moved on to other companies I mean there no longer on this earth. However there was a lot they did to really change the game up. Springfield, Ohio warehouse to this day is one of the companies greatest most crowning accomplishments the place is the absolute gold standard or was back when it was built in 1998. There are not to many food distribution warehouses like it.

GFS and it's not perfect, but I do believe they have tried very very very hard to tackle head on the loading problems that you always hear about with food service stuff miss placed digging all of that, I know for a fact the company has spent millions and millions of dollars in different warehouse designs and technologies to try to combat the loading problems you read about on this forum that are so common. The automated warehouses were a huge huge huge step forward in fighting loading problems. Like I said it's not always perfect and there's a human element that still counts and with business growth systems sometimes get pushed passed there limits, but like today, I was back in C-Town had an automated floor load and nigh and day difference I had a packer who knew what he/she was doing as well which helps, but night and day difference between hand stack pallet load and automated floor load, the floor load just so much better.

Not fighting shrink wrap or pallets and the trailer unloads so much easier, I had an almost 13,000lbs load which is a little on the light side, but getting to low average for a 28' trailer we can go heavier and do, but that's low average and by 10:00am I had 10,000lbs already rolled off the back and no pallets or shrink wrap in my way no debris the trailer cleans out so much easier so much less work for the driver and warehouse.

@Pintlehook I think GFS tries to be the Supervalue of our business what you guys are to grocery stores we try to be in the broad line market. I know our Florida division Plant City area is growing like crazy they've added trucks and have a lot of temp routes and the whole 9-yards because of the growth down there. Kind of like you guys at Supervalue grow and do a lot.

 

I don't always like our Valley View Bridge on I-480 in Cleveland, but were not out over the Chesapeake Bay that sounds scary!