How to Organize Food Banks
Organizing a food bank will make it easier to find food products and help maintain a professional environment of excellence. One of the most challenging aspects of running a food bank is to get rid of food before it goes bad. The purpose of a food bank is to provide the needy with food for their families, so keeping food products organized by expiration date and type can help get the right food to the appropriate family quickly.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
Organize the Food
-
1
Organize the layout of the space you're using for the food bank. Create a space towards the front of the food bank where you can store all short shelf life foods such as bread, dairy products and baked goods. These items should be organized in different sections by category. Place the items with the shortest expiration dates in front of the items with longer ones. Your workers should be able to glance at all the products and easily identify expiration dates. You may want to "date dot" each item, clearly stating when the item is no longer good. Keep the expiration dates organized when adding newer products to the older ones.
-
2
Place the food items with the longest shelf life towards the back of the space. These items include canned items, dry products such as rice and other processed foods with a long shelf life. Organize these products by category such as canned foods, boxed foods and grain-based foods. Provide easy access to each section modeled after a grocery store.
-
-
3
Place all the other items in between the front and back of the store and organize by category. You can mix and match different brands of the same item, but do not mix different products in the same place. This will only create confusion and disrupt the organizational flow.
-
4
Maintain a clean and neat food bank to keep an organized feel. Have an employee remove items that are out-of-date at the end of each day, sweep the store, and organize items that are out of place.
-
1
