📦 Warehouse

A warehouse is a building where finished products are stored before being sent on. A dairy warehouse is made up almost entirely of cold rooms. Some hold chilled milk, kefir and cheese. Others hold frozen ice cream and butter.

Goods arrive at the warehouse from the plant already labelled, with a date and a code on the pack. Storekeepers and loaders receive them, count them and check the paperwork. Then the goods are placed on racks. When shops place orders, the goods are picked, loaded into refrigerated trucks and sent off.

Order and record-keeping matter in a warehouse. Every box can be found by its code, using scanners and warehouse software. Products with a nearer date are shipped first. Otherwise they could go out of date right in the warehouse. A warehouse that delivers goods straight to many shops is called a distribution center. The line between them is blurry. A distribution center is also a warehouse, but its main job is not to store goods for long but to send them on quickly.