Many different types of organizations use wholesale food distribution. Used in many institutional settings, it can save money in many different ways. Customers like the convenience and speed of delivery.

These types of food suppliers can provide a variety of boxed meal programs. They can make up meal kits such as those that have sandwiches, fresh fruit and snack items. They create these types of meals on a daily basis so that they are always fresh and ready to eat. They use prepackaged or sliced lunch meats and have the condiments ready in small packets so the person eating the sandwich can prepare it as they like. Many of these companies are also able to provide individual breakfasts such as cereal and fruit along with milk and fruit juices.

Prisons, schools and hospitals sometimes make up the clientele of the wholesale food distribution industry. Some of these institutions are in areas that are not large enough to support the cost of running a kitchen and hiring regular employees to staff it. Others may want to cut these costs by outsourcing it. These companies can supply fresh food on a frequent basis to these types of groups.

Other purposes for this type of f
ood service include disaster planning. These companies are able to act quickly to supply individual meals for communities in need after tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or other natural disasters that force people from their homes or disrupt power to areas for extended times. Many communities tend to find companies like these to work with in advance of problems so that it helps them with emergency planning.

These suppliers can provide thousands of meals each day. Some of them provide 30,000 in a usual day. Many of them can do up to 50,000 a day when the need arises. This allows them to keep the prices the same for their customers if they have an increase in orders. If they needed to add overtime or additional shifts, it would be possible to produce even more meals. The meals are provided in large production plants using an assembly line type production method in which each worker is responsible for providing a key quality ingredient.

These companies are also able to provide ingredients and products for institutions that do their own cooking. They handle orders for large qualities of soups, sauced, canned and frozen vegetables and other products. Some institutions may use a combination of the two types of wholesale food distribution depending on their budget and staffing needs.