The Warmest is 27°F

My mind wonders this morning as I thaw out from taking an inventory in a perishable foods warehouse in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. When you stroll by the meat case or the frozen food display in the super market, do you wonder about how those products got there?

I am a key account representative for one of those companies that brings these nice convenient items that you now drop in your shopping buggy. This story is about what happens behind the scene in the management of this huge, huge industry. My company manufactures both cooler or meat case items and freezer items. The management in my warehouse and in the perishable foods distributor may sometimes take a crystal ball. How much will you buy and which flavor or size will you buy the most or least of? How much or how little do I need to keep in inventory to meet your needs? Hummm!

Tuesday is the order from my buyer, but first it is INVENTORY of the pull slots in this warehouse to verify, in truth, my products are in there designated pull slots. For me, now, it is to don a large, thinsulate parka and gloves and of course, a cap or hat. It gets cold, very cold, in those coolers and freezer.

You have to image a "huge" and very long and tall room with shelves or "slots" reaching the ceiling. It is not warm! The warmest cooler being 27°F above Zero and the freezer is 15°F below Zero. The shock in the freezer is mind bending as there are fans blowing making the chill factor somewhere in the 40°F below zero. You don't fool around in this freezer! You had better know where your slots are and get the dates and count in the pull slots and get out. The guys (and gals) that work in this environment only stay 20 minutes and that is with the heaviest of cold weather gear available. Luckily, I only have 15 items in the freezer and 5 minutes in there and I am GONE.

The balance of my items are in coolers at 27°F, but these too have high speed fans making the chill factor somewhere around 15°F. I have tried working this cooler without gloves but 10 minutes in there, you have no feeling in your hands. Double lined cotton gloves enable me to stand the cold and make date and quantity notes on my inventory control.

Why do we do this? The 2 hours spent in this cold environment assures me that the products you buy in the grocery store are fresh, rotated properly, and have 60 to 90 days on expiration. This a quality assurance part of a sales job that only the sales rep will or should do. No one takes care of your product better than you do. I depend on the perishable management to do a good job, but they are managing much, much more than my line and cannot see what you see when you are focused totally on one line or brand of products.

A perishable food warehouse ships 10's of millions of dollars each 'day' to member stores. We, the sales rep, if we or I am doing my job, must make sure you get my product as fresh as possible.

So each Tuesday, it is putting my body through this 3 hours in the coolers and freezer for freshness control and assurance. The next time you pick up that pack of bacon or frozen dinner, you now have a keyhole view of what it takes to get it there as fresh as possible. Everything is on computer as a laptop is my constant companion. Years ago we took those orders on paper as well as inventory but not now. Everything is on computer, everything. Speed is now needed in managing orders and inventories. I think back and wonder now how we did it without our computer. Maybe it was the fact we it was a smaller task and the world moved a little slower. I wonder about the next generation of perishable sales rep and what he will have?