Are you new to industrial oil totes? If you’ve only worked with smaller sizes like drums or jugs before, industrial totes can feel both large and overwhelming.

In light of that, I’d like to show you a few videos, filmed in our warehouse in Kent, WA. In the video, you’ll see our Production Manager, Kevin Smith show you how to attach the dispensing valves, how the cardboard and plastic totes may dispense differently and other details on how to set up totes in your facility.

Kevin is the king when it comes to knowing how to use these totes: he runs all of our packing and production in-house and knows this type of packaging inside and out.

Everyone in the food industry that I know is stressed — busy, happy (and meaningfully) stressed. This can be a blessing and a curse. It means that there’s lots to be done, with great opportunities to make change in your company and affect the food industry for the better… but there’s still LOTS to be done.

When our plates are overwhelmed with work, were often overly stressed as well.

If you’re in the food industry, here’s 10 ways that you can take a load off and reduce your stress — without losing your edge — in your job.

Current logistics and supply chain management trends are discussed very often on social media sites. How can we identify them really? This article will show you some trends in the past and reveal what the future holds.

Background
Expert opinions appear to be the most important source of information for a trend prediction. In the year 2000, Journal of Business Logistics published the article named "Ten Mega-Trends That Will Revolutionize Supply Chain Logistics". The authors of this article are the late Donald Bowersox, David Closs and Theodore Stank (at that time all of them were at Michigan State University). The purpose of this article was to identify the paradigm shifts the authors observed from the way leading companies transformed their supply chain capabilities which were the results of the change of information technology. Ten megatrends can be summarized as below,

1) the shift from customer service to relationship management
2) more collaborative behavior
3) demand sharing creates the higher level of a joint business planning
4) new business environment requires a rapid change in processes and practices
5) focus on the bottom-line changes to focus on the value creation
6) internal functions are more integrated
7) virtual integration replaces the vertical integration
8) companies share more information with trading partners
9) multi-skilled employees are required
10) economic value added concept are more prevalent

Some of these trends have become the realities, depending on where you are in the supply chain.

What's Next?
Since the technologies change faster than ever and the scope of supply chain management is expanding, it's absolutely important for supply chain practitioners to capture the trends from the overall business landscape. In order to achieve this objective, we conduct a literature review and find an interesting article named "Agent of Change: the Future of Technology Disruption in Business" published by Intelligence Unit of "The Economist" in 2012. It's the result of a global survey of more than 500 executives conducted in 2011 + a series of in-depth interviews with thinkers from various industries about the future and business model in the year 2020. More details can be found as below,

If you are a food service distributor (or a customer of a distributor) you may have wondered if there’s an easier way to dispense from your 35 Lb. Containers, other than picking up the jug and pouring it.

I’ve tried to do that, and it’s always an awkward ordeal — you’ve got to muscle the box up to your measuring bowl, and your arms are straining to control the flow. After just a few days, this system can get tiresome and may have you searching for a better process.

The good news is that there IS a better way, and it’s really quite simple.

Is time management important to your business and your life? This article will show you 10 best time management books that get the attentions of leading CEOs.

Supply Chain Opz conducted a survey with CEOs to learn more about their favorite time management books.  

Here's a list of some of the top CEOs' favorite books to help you structure your time better and be more productive.

This article was originally a case study published by Omega-9 Oils, and is printed here with permission. Their canola seed, used to produce the oil that this article refers to, is now available from Centra Foods in a non-GMO form as Non-GMO High Oleic Canola Oil.

At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the dining services team grade themselves on creating cravable experiences and making student health a priority. Kenneth Toong, Director of Dining Services, is constantly seeking ways to improve the nutritional and flavor profiles of the 4,000 recipes in his six campus dining establishments. Making the switch to Omega-9 Oils was an “A” move in his book.

In 2008, he reviewed research from the Harvard School of Public Health that stated 120,000 to 228,000 heart attacks could be averted each year by reducing trans fats in the diet. As a result, Toong began looking for ways to reduce or eliminate trans fat from University of Massachusetts’ menus. With a health profile including zero trans fat, the lowest amount of saturated fats and high monounsaturated fats, Omega-9 Oils provided Toong and his team the ideal healthier oil solution. 

This last Thursday, March 10th Expo West 2016 kicked off with the Fresh Ideas Organic show. This is a one-day-only show focused on organic products. It’s a hot spot before the main show floor opens for buyers to find new organic trends and organic purchasers to locate suppliers.

Over the last few years, the Centra Foods blog has become a good source of information for anyone buying edible oils for bulk or industrial uses (especially olive oil).

This article will be a unique look back over the top 10 blogs that we’ve posted in the last 3 years. These blogs have been the most searched by purchasers like you with questions.

We’ll start with the #10 blog, and work our way backwards to the most popular oil article out there.

If you are a food manufacturer serving the natural food industry and you’re not already doing organics, you’ve probably wondered the following:

What would it take for us to get organic certified? And would it really be worth it?

I recently sat down with our Quality Control Manager and our Warehouse Manager to ask just these questions. I wanted to find out, exactly what it takes to get USDA Organic Certified. I asked questions like:

• What is the process to become organic certified?
• How challenging is it?
• What can the warehouse expect?
• What can purchasing expect?
• How long is it going to take us?

These answers, along with an analysis of your target market, will help you answer the big question: is it worth it for your business?

In this article, originally published on Supply Chain Opz, Professor Burcu Keskin from University of Alabama will share 7 supply chain trends that working professionals should watch.

As pressure to improve supply chain cost performance increases for many companies, the evaluation and selection of competent suppliers becomes a key concern. Typically, total cost, quality, and delivery performance appear as critical factors in the supplier selection process. However, complex supplier relationships, unreliable sources of material supply, and ever-increasing customer expectations greatly add to the expectations to select the best suppliers and conduct their operations more efficiently.

Chances are that if you work in the food industry (or if you’ve gone grocery shopping in the last year), you’ve seen the non-gmo project’s colorful butterfly seal.

But… in case anyone is new to the food industry, or you are just now looking at getting your product Non-GMO Project Verified, I’d like to do a quick review of this quality seal — what it means, and what you can expect if you want to get your product Non-GMO Project Verified™.

The USDA Organic Seal is the quality assurance program that is run by the United States Department of Agriculture as a part of the national organic program (also known as the NOP).

In this article, we will show you a list of operations management book that inspires world's leading business leaders from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and more.