Multi-Temp Fleet Supports Fundraising All schools attempt to raise money to supplement funding from taxes. Some are more effective than others, especially those that work with Market Day Corporation, a specialized food distributor with corporate headquarters in Itasca, Illinois, one of the western suburbs of Chicago. Market Day provides a method for monthly fund-raising with frozen and fresh food delivered to schools and other civic organizations with a fleet designed to maintain the integrity of restaurant quality products.
Market Day says it is the nation's original fundraising cooperative. It was founded 25 years ago by Trudi Temple. Since the first fundraising effort for Temple's daughter, which led to a regular Produce Day at the child's school, Market Day has helped more than 6,000 schools in 20 metropolitan areas raise a total exceeding $250 million. In addition to the professional staff at corporate headquarters and 13 remote locations in nine states, Market Day relies on the hard work of more than 72,000 school volunteers to organize and run monthly sales at participating schools. Community centers and church schools also participate in the Market Day program. An organization involved with Market Day needs about 350 students or members to justify participation.
The company offers more than 150 items, mostly frozen meats, seafood, poultry, breakfast foods, and desserts. The product list includes products from vendors such as Campbell Soup, Pillsbury, Tyson Foods, and Vienna Beef. Order sheets are distributed monthly at the participating schools. Customers fill out the orders and return them to the school. The program is designed for purchases from family and friends. Market Day does not want children involved in door-to-door sales, says Janet Cannon, a regional sales manager based at the company's home distribution center.
Sale at School Within a couple of days to perhaps a week, Market Day delivers orders to the school for pick-up. The delivery is called a sale. At a prearranged time, usually in the afternoon so that adults can participate, Market Day delivers to the school, staging the products by category for pick-up by customers. Although the pickup process is called a sale, all orders are already sold at delivery. Volunteers ensure that orders are correct and collect payment.
Work at the school is performed by the Market Day driver, a company account representative, and school volunteers, usually members of the PTA. The school receives 10% to 15% of the profit on the sale. Some high revenue items return 20% to 40% to the school. The company helped raise $25 million in 1999. In the week ending October 20, 2000, Market Day raised more than $780,000 for schools.
The company's primary distribution center is located on 8.5 acres in Wood Dale, Illinois, a short distance from company headquarters. It is an 82,000-sq-ft building devoted almost entirely to frozen storage. The refrigerated dock has 17 doors.
15 Turns Annually The school sale order cycle is monthly with an average of a week between order receipt and delivery. Although this cycle allows plenty of time for delivery from vendors, Market Day holds a substantial inventory to ensure complete delivery at each school sale. The warehouse inventory turns an average of 15 to 18 times a year, says Todd Peterson, headquarters warehouse facility manager.
The home warehouse also contains the first Market Day store that opened on September 14, 2000. About the size of a small convenience store and open six days a week, it stocks the same inventory available at school sales. The store provides fundraising for schools throughout the Market Day network. A portion of the profit from every purchase is dedicated to a specific school simply by designating that school at check-out. More Market Day stores are planned.
In addition to the home distribution center in Wood Dale, Market Day operates six other warehouse locations in Atlanta; Burlington, New Jersey; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Indianapolis; and Milwaukee. These warehouses stock only the fastest-moving items. Within the Market Day system, the home warehouse is known as a hub and the other five warehouse locations are known as mini-hubs. Roughly half the inbound loads required by the Market Day system are delivered to Wood Dale. Additional inventory is shipped to the mini-hubs as needed by for-hire carrier or shuttled from the headquarters warehouse. Additional school service is provided by six crossdock operations in Akron, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Peoria, and Pittsburgh. These do not stock product. Complete orders are shipped to the crossdock operations for subsequent delivery.
175 Multi-Temp Vehicles Serving this widespread network requires a fleet of 175 vehicles, 15 tractors and refrigerated trailers, and 160 refrigerated straight trucks ranging from 14 ft to 24 ft. The largest single portion of the fleet - 52 vehicles - is based in Wood Dale. The entire fleet is administered by Tom Sabatini, transportation manager, working with transportation supervisors Bill Eby, Frank Laurendi, and Tammy Wlosiak. In addition, Market Day operates an internal carrier known as Apple Trucking that is supervised by Steve Gillete.
Most of the fleet is company-owned, although some is leased from Rollins and Ryder. "The decision to purchase or lease is based on economic conditions at the time of equipment acquisition," Sabatini says.
The entire fleet is equipped for multi-temp operation. Unlike most multi-temp systems for foodservice delivery, Market Day dedicates the majority of its refrigeration capacity to frozen products. Roughly 80% of the company inventory is frozen. The other 20% is comprised of fresh juice and chilled items such as cheese. At one time, Market Day sold fresh produce, but that has been discontinued. When loads are assembled, an average of 75% of vehicle cube is used for frozen product.
1,350 Stops Monthly The 52 trucks based in Wood Dale make an average of 1,350 stops a month in an area within 100 miles of the warehouse. These stops are tightly scheduled with the sale time determined by other school activity. Company and school representatives work to set a mutually convenient sale time, but in the final analysis sales must be set to meet the school schedule. A truck usually carries product for two school sales. It takes the driver and the account representative about an hour to unload and arrange product before the customers arrive. Frozen product is protected with dry ice during the sale.
Trucks are packed full upon departure from the warehouse. Loads may be on pallets or stacked on the floor, depending on the load cube. Drivers actually prefer floor stacks, because loads must be unloaded by hand and pallets make working inside the truck body more difficult, Laurendi says.
To help speed unloading, trucks carry a Nestaflex accordion-style conveyor in the truck body. This conveyor expands lengthwise as the truck is unloaded so that the driver does not have to carry carton inside the truck body. To get product to the ground, trucks carry 70 ft of skate-wheel conveyor so that the entire load can be taken off through the rear door. The conveyor stows in compartments under the truck body for travel.
Simple Order Separation With only two stops per load, product segregation is simple. Chilled product for the first sale is loaded along the streetside wall. The Nestaflex conveyor is placed in the center, and the second sale is placed next to the curbside wall. Frozen product is separated from the chilled compartment by bulkheads from Randall Manufacturing.
The use of multi-temp refrigeration has been an evolutionary process at Market Day. Although the company now relies on Thermo King MD-II TCI TLE systems with cooling and heating in both compartments, the first multi-temps were intended to hold frozen goods in the nose compartment and to heat chilled products when necessary in the rear. These first multi-temp systems were fabricated for Market Day by Illinois Auto Central, the Thermo King dealer in Chicago. They used a heat exchanger and hot coolant from the refrigeration unit engine to warm the medium temperature compartment. Some mounted the heat exchanger on the curbside wall. Other installations mounted the heater on the ceiling.
Since 1997, Market Day has begun to standardize its delivery fleet on Freightliner FL70 chassis with Kidron refrigerated bodies. The trucks are powered by Caterpillar 3126 engines rated at 190 horsepower. For ease of operation in metropolitan Chicago traffic, the trucks are equipped with MD-3060 Allison automatic transmissions. The newest trucks in the fleet mount 20- or 24-ft truck bodies. Other trucks in the fleet mount Morgan bodies on Chevrolet chassis.
Fire Department Drivers The fleet is manned by a mixed group of drivers. Many of the delivery drivers also work for fire departments in the Chicago area. "They all are professional drivers with an impeccable safety record," Sabatini says. "The schedules worked in fire departments provide our part-time drivers with the flexibility to meet our school sale schedules. A fire department work schedule often is 24 hours on-duty followed by 48 hours off. We also have a group of fulltime drivers for our tractor fleet and our intra-company shuttle operation."
Illinois Auto Central plays a greater part in Market Day than simply supplying refrigeration equipment. The company also provides a full contract maintenance service. Units are inspected weekly and serviced as required. Every unit in the fleet is given a complete inspection annually. Service work is done on-site in Wood Dale. "We have at least one service truck and sometimes two at Market Day every day," says Dave Smith, sales manager for Illinois Auto Central.
