Your warehouse has to shut down in December for year-end counts, federal compliance, and facility maintenance. But with the right procurement strategy, you can minimize the time you’re offline and avoid the January panic that occurs when every food bank places emergency orders simultaneously.
Food banks already know how to plan for year-end. You’re managing federal compliance requirements, perishable inventory counts, and deep-cleaning the facility while maintaining service through your busiest season. The challenge isn’t planning itself—it’s coordinating shelf-stable inventory drawdown and replenishment so you’re not competing with every other food bank for the same products in early January.
Here’s what we’ve learned from working with food banks across the country.
Four Ways to Reduce Inventory Without Reducing Service
Good news: if you’re counting shelf-stable inventory, you’re working with the easiest portion of your year-end process. Shelf-stable counts typically take just a few hours, especially if you limit partial pallets in the final month of the year. The real challenge is coordinating the drawdown and replenishment of that inventory while your team handles the more labor-intensive tasks like perishable counts, federal compliance documentation, and facility deep cleaning.
1. Think Mixed Truckloads, Not Single-Item Orders
Calculate What You Actually Need
Your traditional ordering patterns might be based on single-item full truckloads, but ordering a full truckload in December that won’t move until February unnecessarily complicates and prolongs your year-end inventory count.
Look at your historical distribution volume on an item-by-item basis for the remainder of the year and order accordingly. If you’re low on canned green beans and normally order full truckloads, but know you’ll distribute only 7 pallets before the last week in December, plan to order just 7-9 pallets.
That sounds complicated and more expensive for freight, but if you count up the total number of pallets per item you need, you can then combine those totals to fill mixed truckloads. Mixed truckloads maximize freight value while minimizing excess inventory. Instead of ordering a full truck of one product (which forces you to order more than you need), you combine multiple products on a single truck to meet exact distribution needs without overstocking any single item.
Build Vendor Relationships That Can Move Fast
Reduce on-hand inventory to cover two to three weeks of distribution instead of maintaining 60-90 days of buffer stock. Since items can turn at different speeds and your inventory will be lower, this mixed truckload ordering approach requires you to develop vendor relationships that offer inventory variety AND can turn orders quickly if you need more sooner than anticipated.
Lead times under a week are ideal. Test your supplier lead times before November so you have a solid expectation of how long it will take you to get replenishments. It’s also good practice to communicate your purchasing strategy to your vendor rep so they can share any known inventory or supply chain variances. Year-end is notorious for unexpected delays, but a trusted vendor can help eliminate roadblocks and avoid delays if they know your inventory needs in advance.
2. Pre-Schedule Your Rebound Deliveries
This is where most food banks leave money on the table.
The week after New Year’s, every food bank in the country that has drawn down its inventory for end-of-year counts realizes they’re running on empty and places emergency orders simultaneously. Lead times stretch, preferred items sell out, and you’re competing with everyone else for the same limited inventory.
Lock in January deliveries during November and December. Secure pricing, quantities, and delivery dates in advance so you’re not scrambling when everyone else is also panicking. Ask vendors to hold inventory and coordinate future shipment dates to meet your scheduled demand.
For example, if you know you’ll need 20 pallets of peanut butter in the second week of January for your school pantry program, lock that order in during December. You’ll get your preferred pricing, guaranteed delivery timing, and avoid the post-holiday rush when manufacturers prioritize their largest customers first. But you don’t take shipment until right after the first of the year, when the kids are back in school.
3. Communicate the Shutdown Plan Early (and Plan Around It)
Beyond procurement timing, the physical count itself requires coordination that food banks sometimes underestimate.
Your warehouse staff needs adequate time to execute a manual count. The reality is harsh: nothing can come in or out during the count itself, which means total operational shutdown with all hands counting.
Closing the warehouse means your core purpose is offline. But the shutdown serves multiple purposes beyond counting. Most food banks use this time to deep-clean docks, storage areas, and freezers after the busiest distribution season of the year. The entire facility is maintained, and handling volume is impossible anyway.
This is smart operationally, but it compounds the coordination challenge. Inevitably, while you’re shut down, a delivery driver will want a dock appointment, an agency will need an emergency pickup, or a snowstorm will delay the “last truck of the year.” In the Midwest, this happens nearly every year.
Mitigate this by doubling up outbound shipments in the week before the count, or increasing quantities in final distributions, so agencies have enough food to cover the gap. The community can’t pause needing food just because you’re counting it.
4. Minimize the Pain with Better Preparation
Use the week before the count to hunt for problems: stray pallets in wrong zones, product in unmarked locations, unusual palletizations that will confuse counters. Train staff on procedures well in advance, not the morning the count starts.
Use blind counting. If counters know they’re looking for 84 cases, they’ll see 84 cases whether there are 84 or 79. If you expect 84 cases and see 79, counters rationalize the gap (“probably miscounted earlier”) instead of investigating. Blind counts eliminate confirmation bias. Count what’s actually there, not what should be there.
Work in pairs with one counter and one recorder. Two sets of eyes increase both accuracy and speed. Rotate pairs periodically to maintain focus.
One More Thing: Get Operations and Programs on the Same Page
November isn’t the time to discover your programs team committed to a Martin Luther King Jr. Day distribution using inventory that doesn’t exist yet.
Weekly 15-minute check-ins in October through December keep operations and programs aligned on open purchase orders, at-risk inventory, expiring products, and planned shipments.
Topics to cover in these weekly check-ins:
- Open POs and expected delivery dates
- Inventory risk items (short-dated, overstocks, products blocking other pallets)
- Short-dated products that need to move before year-end
- Planned shipments and warehouse capacity through December
- Count date, shutdown procedures, and pre/post distribution planning
These brief meetings prevent the 4:47pm Friday emergency text messages that derail everyone’s weekend.
The Bigger Picture
Year-end inventory counts aren’t operations fighting programs for warehouse space. Both teams are protecting your ability to serve neighbors in January when they need you most.
Good inventory management during Q4 means maintaining service levels through the holidays, running an efficient inventory count, and starting the new year with adequate stock to meet immediate demand without resorting to emergency orders at inflated prices.
The food banks that do this well treat December as a strategic planning opportunity, not just a countdown to inventory day. They coordinate teams, communicate clearly with agencies, leverage vendor relationships for flexibility, and enter January ready to serve rather than scrambling to restock.
Your community depends on you in December. Your warehouse count shouldn’t change that.
Need help managing Q4 inventory or coordinating January rebound orders? VAFS works exclusively with food banks and hunger relief organizations nationwide, with 5-day delivery from mixing centers and flexible ordering to support strategic inventory management. Contact us