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better serve our customers. Historically, we primarily served customers from the Northeast, and now we can shorten their lead times by at least a day in terms of product turnaround,” he informs.
In January 2021, Honor Foods started operating out of its new facility in Philadelphia, taking another step towards modernizing its processes.“ Our new, larger building on Tacony Street is located within the Keystone Opportunity Zone( KOZ). This move from our older Philadelphia facility to this more modern one is part of a broader revitalization effort in the region. With this transition, we were able to not only optimize the layout of the facility to better suit the needs of our business, but also to incorporate many of the latest, updated technologies dedicated to product storage, workflow, and equipment. As a result of this investment, we have experienced a substantial increase in productivity,” JD emphasizes.
Creating value
Alongside new facilities, Honor Foods’ operations have been bolstered through the adoption of cutting-edge technology, as JD unveils:“ Like many companies integrating businesses through acquisition, we are making significant investments in our IT and technology platforms. Our ultimate goal is to have every business within the Honor Foods umbrella on the same system, thus providing a seamless experience for both our customers and suppliers. This integration will enhance visibility into product turnover and demand fluctuations, allowing us to share valuable information more effectively. We are also exploring different ways to incorporate automation and artificial intelligence to augment our processes. Nonetheless, we still uphold our people-first approach, which is often referred to in the industry as Team Human. We believe that a lot of teamwork can be simplified through automation, enabling our staff to create more value and better work with our customers to figure out solutions to challenges that are more complex. Our purpose statement emphasizes improving lives and supply chains by solving tough problems. Leveraging automation and artificial intelligence allows our talented workforce to focus on providing those solutions rather than spend their valuable time performing routine tasks,” he concludes.
By embracing strategic acquisitions, cutting-edge technology, and geographic expansion Honor Foods is poised to provide many more customers with its renowned distribution services. ■
www. honorfoods. com
JD Spangler foodchainmagazine. com 77