Facility Design Project of the Month

Each month, FE&S spotlights a project worth talking about, with in-depth coverage from concept through completion including a kitchen equipment floor plan.

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Designing for Food Bank Expansion

Through a renovation and expansion of the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, the nonprofit’s leadership team set out to expand its efforts to fight hunger in 24 counties in Oklahoma. One in six Oklahomans is food insecure, according to the food bank. The need for food in this part of the state was significant, as was the need for an efficient way to feed people. 

“As feeding programs identify and support food-insecure members of our communities, we make investments to strengthen and improve their infrastructure, transportation and storage capacity,” says Jeff Marlow, CEO, Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. Marlow previously worked as an executive chef and clubhouse manager for a country club and joined the food bank in 2013 as chief culinary officer. After serving as chief culinary officer and executive vice president, he became CEO in January 2024. “Before expansion, the maximum distribution was 24 million pounds,” he says. “We were over capacity and weren’t efficient. It wasn’t safe because food was busting from our seams. The facility couldn’t hold poundage we had. This is what moved us to do the expansion.”

Opened in March 2024, the 157,500-square-foot facility supports lofty goals for a five-year vision that includes reducing the food insecurity rate of children from 25% to less than 20% and expanding outreach to rural, urban underserved, and tribal communities.

The construction project gutted and refurbished an existing 79,500-square-foot facility. The project also added 78,000 square feet, including a bulk food warehouse, which includes dry storage, a new freezer and a cold dock; a designated lobby entrance for volunteers; an agency shopping center where partner agencies can shop for food; a break room and administrative offices; a main kitchen; and an exhibition kitchen and event space.

Today, the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma provides food to more than 600 food pantries and feeding program partners. “We are growing our community involvement, and we all feel very proud of this,” Marlow says.

Partner agencies include pantries, schools, afterschool programs, summer feeding, homeless shelters, religious organizations, senior centers and veterans’ organizations. “The expansion project was needed to increase the capacity and efficiency of the facility in order to get more product out into the community,” says Mike Lewis, senior vice president of operations and logistics, Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

Photo by Susan Rainey, Yellow Dog Design Works, LLCPhoto by Susan Rainey, Yellow Dog Design Works, LLC

Old and New

During the construction project, business had to continue. “This provided the major challenges,” Lewis says.

To address these challenges, the project was completed in phases over a five-year period that started in 2019. “Project teams had to switch up phases due to scheduling and keeping the food bank active during this time,” says Eli Huff, FCSI, president, SFG Consulting Co., Tulsa, Okla. Huff served as owner’s representative and foodservice design consultant.

The project began with the construction crew refurbishing the existing warehouse. The crew made temporary delivery staging lanes and had to clean up one aisle at a time in order to keep spaces open for ongoing order fulfillment. “The biggest accomplishment for my team was completely cleaning out and reorganizing the warehouse, using 5S and Lean principles, creating a flow for order fulfillment and staging deliveries on a schedule,” Lewis says. “Even today, flow throughout the facility is always undergoing continuous improvement.” 

A well-organized main kitchen freezer allows staff to easily find ingredients and distribute them as necessary.A well-organized main kitchen freezer allows staff to easily find ingredients and distribute them as necessary.After construction, Lewis hired a person to help handle his myriad tasks of managing the warehouse, purchasing, inventory and transportation.

In the renovated warehouse, Huff says, “the 30-foot-high ceilings allow forklifts to drive in and out of the storage areas and maximize speed. Designers included high-speed, insulated overhead doors with sensors that open in two seconds when a forklift approaches and close in the same amount of time when they are done.”

The old and new warehouse is all in one area now. “There are no walls between them,” Huff says. “Only coolers separate the spaces.” The new warehouse contains a cold receiving dock with a new walk-in bulk freezer and walk-in cooler. Staff now receive products in a temperature-controlled environment before taking them directly into the warehouse freezer storage space or directly into the warehouse dry storage facility.

In addition, while the construction crew refurbished the administrative offices and eventually added more, the food bank rented commercial office building space in Tulsa for administrative office workers. Refurbished offices include new furniture and IT/AV tech that helps the organization fulfill its mission.

The new offices include break rooms and a relaxation room with massage chairs where staff can take breaks and recharge. “One of my favorite small additions are the sound pods, which we have placed throughout the facility including in the warehouse and enable staff to jump on a quick Zoom or Teams meeting from anywhere in the building,” Huff says.

Nearly one-third of deliveries the food bank receives come via donations from the USDA, and another third of donations come courtesy of big box retail food stores and local grocery stores. The remaining third comes from food vendors. “There is rarely any certainty of what products the food bank will receive on any given day because the donors decide what to send when products come in that they can’t use for a variety of reasons,” Marlow says.

The most significant part of the food bank’s distribution happens in bulk to partners who prepare their food and plate it on-site or distribute it to customers who eat the food at home or at another site.

The construction of a new kitchen also included volunteer center packaging and repackaging areas, and an exhibition and event space. A brightly colored design adorns the volunteer sorting and repacking areas.

Volunteers check in here before walking to their assigned task areas.Volunteers check in here before walking to their assigned task areas.

Built for Production

“The new state-of-the-art production kitchen is a work of art in itself,” Huff says. “It is built for production with the best-of-the-best equipment any chef would want.”

The kitchen contains two pressurized braising pans and two tilting kettles in addition to other bulk cooking equipment.The kitchen contains two pressurized braising pans and two tilting kettles in addition to other bulk cooking equipment.“The chef writes cycle menus, and we plan as best we can for production even though we know the type of products that come in may differ each day,” Marlow says. “With the large number of volunteers coming in every day, we try to keep menu production consistent.”

Staff take food deliveries from the warehouse and place dry, cold and frozen food into specified areas in the kitchen. 

Hot food preparation takes place in the center of the kitchen. This area contains four combi ovens that staff use to cook chicken, meatloaf and other proteins, and two 80-gallon tilting kettles for cooking pasta, vegetables and starches. “Two 80-gallon tilting pressure braising skillets cook, saute, braise and fry proteins in a quarter of the time it took previously,” says Marlow. “The other side of the kitchen houses the traditional setup you would find in a for-profit restaurant.” It includes a griddle, charbroiler, open fryers, a six-burner, open-top range and a convection oven.

A concrete-reinforced cold room keeps products at safe temperatures. The staff prepares hot food in a blast chiller for rapid cooling in this cold area. “Staff can take food from the roll-in combi ovens on the production line into the blast chiller,” Marlow says. “Staff then transport the chilled food into a walk-in cooler or freezer, where it stays until it is needed for service. This cuts the time between preparation and production in half.”

The cold room also contains a conveyor packaging table where staff and volunteers portion food and use four vacuum sealers to tightly cover containers. They place the vacuum-sealed food in a walk-in cooler or freezer until staff take it out for delivery.

The kitchen design provides an area for a full-production bakery. It contains an 80-quart mixer for staff to make various desserts, cookies and breads. Plans include adding a deck oven. “A vent hood has already been installed to make the oven easy to install,” Marlow says.

The food bank also utilizes the new culinary center to generate money for the organization by catering on-site and off-site events. The center also provides hot and frozen meals to organizations throughout the 24-county service area. This includes a partnership with the American Red Cross to prepare meals for disaster response. The culinary center has recently launched a program providing nutritious, complete meals to school and community pantries.

The culinary center has an attached event center that seats 225, complete with audio and visual setup and a demonstration kitchen. “This room was designed for chefs to be able to host fundraisers and/or cooking demonstrations that teach community members how to prepare healthy meals or teach donors cooking skills,” Huff says. The culinary center has full video-recording capabilities for shooting commercials or promotional cooking videos.

A six-burner range with conventional oven beneath, a griddle, a charbroiler and combi ovens, support the culinary staff as they prepare items for both food bank distribution and catered events.A six-burner range with conventional oven beneath, a griddle, a charbroiler and combi ovens, support the culinary staff as they prepare items for both food bank distribution and catered events.The fully functional demonstration kitchen includes a multicook oven, two upright refrigerators, a six-burner range, a refrigerator drawer, a built-in microwave oven, a ventless high-speed oven and an undercounter dishwasher. “Because of the talented and experienced culinary team, the food bank has become a trailblazer among a network of 200 food banks by offering these experiences and services,” Marlow says. 

For off-premises banquets, which are sponsored by companies that contract with the food bank culinary team to provide the food, menu items are placed in hotel pans or chafers and transported in hot and cold food carts. Staff at the catered site display menu items on buffet lines. If the event includes a seated meal, the food bank plates menu items and covers the plates with domes before placing them into hot-holding containers and transporting them to sites. If menu items will be served at a later date than delivery, items are delivered frozen with heating instructions.

Project builders also constructed an agency shopping center, where area pantries can have a customer-choice shopping experience and select menu items such as fresh apples and pecans. Refrigerators and ambient cases with glass sliding doors display food items. “This has been a huge success, because purchasers don’t have to buy huge pallets of food, but rather can customize orders to fit their needs,” Huff says.

Another food bank feature, a mobile market, provides service in the community. “This is a very cool truck that is designed where windows swing open, and it looks like a farmers market,” Marlow says. “We take this out to food desert areas without agencies or grocery stores. Because most people who can use the food are working class, we go when the times best suit their needs.”

The Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma’s vision is “no person in Oklahoma hungry.” The expansion takes a significant step toward making this vision come true. A dinner party planned for May 17, 2025, will raise money for the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma’s distribution center. “We couldn’t do what we do without volunteers, feeding partners, and the support and compassion of our community,” Marlow says. “It will take us all to end hunger in our great state.” 

Volunteers repackage food to send out to agencies and programs that accept the food bank’s food.Volunteers repackage food to send out to agencies and programs that accept the food bank’s food.

About the Project

  • Opened: March 5, 2024
  • Scope of project: New bulk warehouse, production kitchen, exhibition/teaching kitchen and event space, separate volunteer entry lobby and volunteer center, agency shopping center and employee offices and lounges
  • Website: foodbank.org
  • Size: Includes refurbished existing 79,500 sq. ft. for warehouse and office space; 78,000 sq. ft. added for commercial kitchen, event space, ballroom, commercial cooler, commercial freezer, volunteer center, agency shopping and warehouse space
  • Hours: 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., except during special events
  • Annual food distribution to more than 600 partner agencies: 28 million pounds in 2023; 29 million pounds in 2024; estimated 34 million pounds by end of 2025. This is the equivalent of up to 15,000 breakfasts, lunches and dinners per week.
  • Budget: $300,000 each month for purchased food 
  • Menu items: All types of food for distribution
  • Staff: 91 full-time employees; 10,000 volunteers annually
  • Total project cost: $28 million
  • Equipment investment: $3.6 million

The food bank team is always looking for ways to improve flow from the warehouse through to fulfillment.The food bank team is always looking for ways to improve flow from the warehouse through to fulfillment.

Key Players

  • Owner: Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma
  • CEO: Jeff Marlow
  • Senior vice president of operations and logistics: Mike Lewis
  • Chief impact officer: Austin Brewer
  • Chief culinary officer: Jeremy Johnson
  • Owner’s representative: SFG Consulting Co., Tulsa, Okla.: Eli Huff, FCSI, president
  • Foodservice design consultants: SFG Consulting Co.: Eli Huff, FCSI, president
  • Architect: GH2 Architects, Tulsa, Okla.: Alex Holt, AIA, architect
  • Interior design: GH2 Architects
  • General contractor: Crossland Construction Co., Tulsa, Okla.: Stephen Eastham, general contractor
  • Equipment dealer: Amundsen Commercial Kitchens, Oklahoma City

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