N

It has been one-year since Dot Foods officially broke ground on a new $50 million distribution center in Manchester. In that time, the nation’s largest food redistributor has worked to become a part of the local community.

Anthony Soto, GM of Dot Foods Manchester, said Manchester was chosen as the site of the Mount Sterling, Illinois based company’s 13th distribution Center nationwide.

“How we come to a location, there is a lot of work that goes into that,” Soto said. “We look at mile studies, we look at employee availability, we look at the density of CDL holders in the area, of course we look at local and regional support from the counties and the state… but the biggest piece for us is really about the culture of the community that we are going to move into.”

Soto said Dot Foods tries to focus its growth efforts in smaller communities, rather than large cities because the value and culture more closely aligns with the culture the company would like to maintain.

While the new facility located at 600 Industrial Parkway in Manchester was originally slated to open in December 2023, some delays have pushed that back.

“That is primarily because of the rain,” Soto said. “There has a lot of water to deal with and that has kind of held us up on site prep and keeping water off the site. So there has been a lot of extra work go in to try to mitigate that.”

Dot Foods is now looking aiming to begin operations sometime in January 2024.

Despite the pushed back timeline, Dot Foods will still have a presence at the Coffee County Fair, in an effort to become more familiar with the community and let people know what type of jobs will be available once they are posted.

“We want them to get a feel for who we are and we don’t want them to apply too early and drag that process way out for them and create frustrations,” Soto said.

While the company is currently hiring truck drivers, other jobs that will later become available will include administrative jobs, technical jobs in the form of maintenance, grounds maintenance, facility maintenance.

“We do have jobs open on the driver’s side, we are trying to build our fleet,” Soto said. “Warehouse material handlers will be a large part of our employee base and we will have salary jobs, multiple, different manager level and supervisory jobs.”

Soto said the term “redistribution” and all that involves is something that is not very well known.

“Really what it is, we are an extension of the manufacturer,” he said.

Rather than a manufacturer making and shipping their own products for distribution to its customers, Dot Foods will enter into a contract with a manufacturer to purchase goods and redistribute them to the company’s customers.

“We look at their sales volume, we make sure it is sustainable and going to work for both parties and we are not going to add cost to the supply chain,” Soto said.

Pricing is the same for customers whether they order directly from the company or from Dot Foods, but by ordering from Dot Foods, they are able to order less than a full truckload of a specific good and order a selection of different items.

“The world has recognized that there is a cost to holding inventory,” Soto said. “What you see is the customers at this point they don’t want to order a full truckload of macaroni and cheese. They want to order less than a truckload and turn their inventory faster.”

Soto said Dot Foods has an aggressive expansion plan for its Manchester location following its initial startup. The company is expecting to have about 130 employees for its initial startup, including drivers, warehouse employees and support staff. By year two, that number is expected to grow to more than 200, while third-year projections are between 300 and 325 employees.

A U.S. Air Force veteran, Soto has been with Dot Foods since 2008, and in that time he has helped launch new distribution centers in Burley, Idaho, Bullhead City, Arizona with Manchester being his latest stop.

Soto said at this point, he does not know if he has another move left in him.

“My wife and my kids and I, we love the community here we love the feel, we love the people,” he said. “As it sits right now today, this could be our final parking spot.”