Dear Customers,
This past month our warehouse that had provided us with the lion’s share of our grocery, dairy, frozen, produce, meat, deli and bakery items was closed! It was an executive solution to a long-standing problem. Located in Dubois, it wasn’t as large as some of the other warehouses associated with the company and as such was often short of items we needed, or they had to order the item in from another warehouse (called cross-docking).
We were switched to the Robesonia warehouse, located East of here, almost to Reading, PA. Our groceries, which formerly traveled for about an hour and a half to get to us, now make a journey of some four hours! While it’s still far too soon to tell, I’m thinking that this might severely impact delivery times, with our trucks arriving much later in the day than what we have been used to.
That is the downside. However, the upside will hopefully more than make up for it. Since Robesonia is a much bigger warehouse with many more items, this should reduce the out of stocks we have experienced on a regular basis. In addition, it should reduce the practice of cross-docking. While we were happy to have any system that would allow us to get an item we needed, cross-docking involved about a week more lead time. Orders for cross-docked merchandise had to be in several days earlier than normal and showed up on the truck several days later than normal.
At this point, I can only describe my opinion as “cautiously optimistic”. We haven’t heard much at all about any changes in ordering, shelf codes or truck schedules. We’re hoping that this will be a “seamless transition”, but in reality – nothing ever is!