and emergency food shelters, excluding those served by the Capital Area Community Food Bank. The Maryland Food Bank operates a 55,000 square foot warehouse in Baltimore, and a 10,000 square food warehouse in Salisbury ("Fact Sheet," 2000, p. 1). The food bank's 1993 goal of establishing a single source to serve food banks throughout the northeast has not yet materialized, in part because of the difficulties in coordinating inventory.
The food bank receives contributions from its member charitable organizations as well as from industry. Indeed, most (92 percent) of the food distributed is salvaged or unsalable products donated by the food industry. In addition, the food bank is a recognized charity with the result that it can receive tax-deductible donations from individuals and corporations, as well as gifts in kind. The food bank is also highly dependent on volunteers for its success and continued operations ("Fact Sheet," 2000, p. 2).
The staff at the Maryland Food Bank has identified various objectives which can be grouped into several goals; these have been discussed in personal interviews and communicated via e mail.
One of the primary areas where the staff would like to see improvement is in consolidation and centralization of operations, a goal which has not changed since 1993. The staff recognizes that the food bank could benefit from on-line ordering through the Internet; this also requires that the food bank have a way to update its inventory in real-time so that the ordering is handled as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Inventory management is also a concern from the standpoint that the food bank currently has two different inventory systems in place: ACCPAC, which handles the Baltimore location and purchased food items, and ECCA, which handles donated food. ACCPAC is the more widely used and more robust system, and the staff has expressed a desire to integrate these two systems and upgrade to ...