US Foods breaks ground on new facility in east Aurora
Officials gathered Tuesday to break ground on the 310,000-square-foot US Foods distribution facility on Aurora’s far East Side.
The facility is at 2810 Duke Parkway, just off Ferry Road and across the street from the Amazon fulfillment center. And while officials refer to it as a distribution center, Sara Matheu, director of media for US Foods, said it is more than that.
“This is not just a place where food comes in and food goes out; it’s a place where we’re supporting our customers,” she said.
Bill Hancock, chief supply chain officer for US Foods, pointed out that the facility will have a development kitchen, where chefs will work on new designs, recipes and ingredients, as well as a technology center, where US Foods officials will work with customers to better their financial operations.
The kitchen is a place where US Foods develops its own products, to go with the many other products they help distribute.
The facility also will have the “latest” in high-efficiency refrigeration and lighting, too, for that distribution aspect, company officials said.
Most of US Foods’ customers are independent restaurants, hotels, colleges and hospitals — almost any place that has food service. So the US Foods facility helps those customers in every aspect of their business, Matheu said.
“It’s not just about good food, but making it easy for our customers,” she said.
Nowhere was that more evident than during the coronavirus pandemic, when many of the independent restaurants that were US Foods customers suddenly had to increase — or in some cases develop altogether — take-out service.
“It was a pivot for us,” Matheu said. “We asked customers, what does your take-out situation look like?”
Not only did the company work to help customers continue their operations, in some cases it helped develop “ghost kitchens,” a place where food is developed and sold strictly online, through delivery.
“We have examples of ghost kitchens that went so well they opened up a brick and mortar operation,” Matheu said.
US Foods is about 150 years old, although it was not always known by that name, being an amalgamation of mergers through the years. The name itself comes from an abbreviation of a former iteration of the company, and does not stand for United States, although the company is strictly domestic.
It has about 70 distribution centers across the country, serving about 250,000 customers with a total of about 29,000 employees.
When the new distribution center opens in mid-2025, it will replace one that has been in Bensenville for 50 years, company officials said.
About 400 employees will relocate from there to Aurora at that time, according to Dave Flitman, US Foods CEO.
“This facility has been years in the making,” he said.
“This is the end of a lot of hard work, just to get us to this milestone,” said Carla Esteva, president of the Lake Michigan Area of US Foods.
Mayor Richard Irvin welcomed the company “home to Aurora,” and said he would like to convince the company to relocate its national headquarters to Aurora too.
For now, it will remain in Rosemont.