WEST JORDAN — Consider it a huge take-out order.
Sysco Intermountain Food Services Inc. just had one, recently taking $15 million worth of food out of its Salt Lake distribution center and hauling it to a new center at 9494 S. Prosperity Road (6200 West).
The new 385,000-square-foot facility had been several years in planning and a year in constructing, with the aim of providing improved food receiving, storage and distribution; a consolidation of many services at one site and room for expansion.
"The efficiencies we expect to realize from this new building and technology will help Sysco Intermountain continue to reduce costs associated with the distribution of products to our customers," said Tom Kesteloot, president and CEO of Sysco Intermountain, which provides food and food accessories to restaurants, hospitals, schools and grocery stores.
Construction began last September on the 40-acre site, and the new building's size is far above the 215,000 square feet on 12.2 acres the company occupied in Salt Lake City. Sysco had been at the old site, near Associated Foods' distribution center, for 21 years, but it had no room for company growth and has been sold.
Dan Gentry, senior vice president of operations for Sysco Intermountain, noted that the truck parking area at the $30 million West Jordan facility is larger than the entire space Sysco had in Salt Lake City.
Other statistics reveal the scope of Sysco's operations at the new facility. It contains 4 million cubic feet for dry storage, 1.6 million for chilled storage and 3.3 million in its freezer. That's enough space to accommodate about 1,000 semi-truckloads.
Some 50,000 cases are brought in on about 100 trucks each day and the same number of cases leave on 72 trucks each night, to be delivered to customers throughout Utah and four other states within a 300-mile radius.
Coming and going from 45 docks — up from 21 at the old facility — are items as ubiquitous as ketchup, napkins, straws and utensils and as peculiar as alligator, rattlesnake, buffalo and edible flowers. Sysco's repertoire features 13,400 individual items.
A super-smooth granite from the Ozarks provides a smooth surface for forklifts, and 25 inches of special layers under the freezer section keep that floor from buckling from the cold. Even minor floor imperfections would be a cause for concern, Gentry noted, because they would be exaggerated when products are lifted for storage on 32-foot-high racks.
Keeping the food fresh are seven temperature zones, accommodating foods with temps as low as 20 below zero and as high as 55 above.
Sysco, as the designated food supplier for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, has an area that will house Olympic-related storage racks. The company also will fence off part of the parking lot and designate certain docks and doors as part of its Olympics security measures.
Other facility features are an on-site marketing staff and customer training center. Marketing Director Roger Parsell said 1,000 people will be trained in safe food handling by Sysco this year — an activity that used to be done off-site.
Other former off-site activities now set for West Jordan involve ergonomics. Exercise equipment and therapy will be available for staffers returning to work or otherwise needing toning of certain muscle groups.
When the move is complete in a few days, nearly 600 employees will be based at the new building. The public can see the operations during a Nov. 10 open house.
The West Jordan site is one of more than 100 distribution centers in the United States and Canada for Sysco and Sysco Corp. subsidiaries FreshPoint and Sygma.
Sysco Intermountain is a wholly owned subsidiary of Houston-based Sysco Corp.
Parsell noted that more than 50 percent of meals are being consumed away from home these days, so Sysco expects its growth pattern to continue.
"We're set for three expansions," Gentry said. "The company usually expands every five years. This will be 600,000 square feet when its fully expanded."
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