Make the Most of Your Food and Beverage Warehouse Space
Maximizing space within a warehouse and strategically positioning items can lead to significant financial and time savings. The layout and design of a warehouse and a distribution network should be an ongoing process. Shippers can improve their food warehousing and distribution with these six strategies:
1. Improve Slotting Patterns
Placing high-velocity pick items as close to the door and as tightly together as possible can help warehouses improve their efficiency. In many cases, engineers can help determine where products should be positioned.
To determine optimal slotting patterns, shippers can look at and share their historical sales data, including volumes and A, B, C and D movers, along with their forecasted demand and seasonality. That data will not only tell shippers and their warehouse management providers what to stock, but also where to position it to get the top movers out the door faster.
To help pick items more efficiently, a number of warehouses use a voice-pick system and employees can close out orders as they pick them, using their voice and an index finger scanner.
2. Examine Labor Standards
The 2025 Annual Third-Party Logistics Study found that the U.S. warehouse labor market has experienced stable growth, with a projected 8% increase over the next five years driven by e-commerce, consumer demand and the need for efficient supply chain operations. Increased demand for labor can make it harder to find qualified workers, making efficiency essential.
As a best practice, warehouses should have labor management time standards. Utilizing software can help manage the movement of people and track their productivity. The results should then be evaluated daily after each shift to ensure employees are meeting their productivity standards.
3. Increase Communication
Many companies can have operations throughout multiple divisions, and frequently, they operate independently of each other with very little communication existing between the divisions. As a 3PL, Penske can add value and examine its network. We may also find another customer that has complementary activities or different seasons, and we can work together.
4. Upgrade Technology
Improving a location’s warehouse management software can provide several benefits, including the traceability of products, which will become even more important as new food safety standards take effect.
Artificial intelligence is gaining greater importance within the supply chain and can help optimize warehouse operations, according to the 2025 Annual Third-Party Logistics Study. “Let’s take, for example, a warehouse full of fresh tomatoes,” said Mark Baxa, president and CEO of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. “We could look at the date they were picked, the weather pattern at the time of harvest, how long it took to move the product into the cold chain, temperature control to preserve the life of the tomato and even the genetics of the variety.”
Additionally, technology to maximize workforce productivity is especially valuable in the warehouse. Penske uses scheduling technology that generates schedules based on associate input and allows associates to communicate with each other if they need to trade shifts. The system offers a more efficient way to schedule associates and helps employees achieve the work-life balance they need.
5. Create a Contingency Plan
Contingency planning can range from pre-planning for a natural disaster to knowing how to ramp up operations if business increases suddenly. It can mean knowing what you’ll need to do if you have to flex to 120%, understanding what that looks like, and having it pre-defined rather than scrambling to build it.
6. Replenish at the Shelf Level
In some cases, a logistics provider will not only deliver goods they pick up at the warehouse, but will also stock customers’ shelves. Drivers can replenish the end users’ shelves at night when the business is closed.
More and more, that is what companies are looking for. They want a program where they send Penske a replenishment order and we stock down to the shelf level. This way, it is much more customer service-focused.
For those types of relationships to be successful, the drivers receive additional training and gain an understanding of the store managers’ preferences. The driver has a relationship with the store managers. It is basically customer service with a delivery attached.