Sysco Food Services of Philadelphia

Look, don’t simply go by my review, I will just present some facts about the company as it would be unfair of me to judge this company as I have business dealings with them and know many people who work here. Keep in mind, I have reviewed over 100 companies at this point, and I have over 2100 friends on Unilocal,and I like to think I am very fair with what I see. I present the facts and give credit where credit is due, there are far too many people in this world that hold everyone around them to a higher standard than they can ever possible attain themselves.
This is why I am saying Sysco is a 5 star operation, and not a 1 star, like the only other person who reviewed them previously:
1.) Unlike many food purveyors Sysco can track everything they sell back to its source. For example, with the local farms they partner with In Jersey, if say a customer was to get a bad head of lettuce and had the box it came in, with the Sysco label still on it, Sysco can recover an incredible amount of information from that label. There is a code on the box that will not only identify the farm the produce was picked from, but also the field, the row, the team leader and often the actual picker. This is as safe as it gets from farm to fork.
I mean, I like farmers markets and all, and I often shop at farmers markets, but I don’t run a restaurant, and I barely have the time to shop for myself, let alone the 1000 people a small, solid local establishment might feed in a week. I will say that when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of my family I would prefer to eat food supplied by a place that has food safety handling procedures that exceeds minimal government mandates.
2.) Sysco buys locally as much as possible, for these two main reasons: a.) Supporting the local economy benefits everyone, schools, infrastructure, etc. B.)Logistics, this is any large company’s biggest expense. Fuel is not cheap, and reducing the carbon foot print is important to any corporation.
3.) They employ local PEOPLE. Corporations are run by people and most employees at most corporations are just trying to make their way in the word, have a happy life and leave the world in a better condition than they found it.
4.) To the point of the only other review on this company, on Unilocal,yes, if you own a restaurant salesmen and saleswomen will call on you. It is what happens in the restaurant world and any business that is not chain operated. So what would you prefer? A lazy salesperson who does not try to win your trust and business, or a hard working salesperson that does?
4.5) Also, If you own a business, competition is good, so having salesmen regularly call on your business will keep all of your other purveyors in line.
5.) I have toured their facilities; they are one of the greenest buildings in Philadelphia. They sit on 38 acres of ground just south of the stadiums. Half of their warehouse is covered in solar panels, their forklifts are powered by hydrogen fuel not conventional batteries charged by the electrical grid, and they have a state of the art cooling system that is currently the most efficient in the world. There are also a lot of other things that I really can’t remember at this point in terms of their sustainably efforts, but they are there and they are real.
6.) This I do know, and I will conclude my review with this: they donate all of their damaged cases where the box is too damaged to sell, but the contents are still intact, to Philabundance and other selected food banks and rehabs. Every Thursday a truck comes to Sysco from these places and picks up a week’s worth of damages. This is literally thousands and thousands of dollars.

Whether you like Sysco or not is a matter of choice, I am not intending to sway anyone’s opinion, in any direction. I just wanted to impart some actual facts about the company before it is judged on the apparent arbitrary rubric of the other reviewer. Writing a negative review on a company and basing that review on information that is not relevant to an industry or representative of the facts carries repercussions for anyone working at that company. I do not understand how someone could give a one star review, potentially affecting the pocket books of thousands of people related to this company and sum up the entire overall experience in just three caustic sentences. No offense to the other reviewer but seriously, you are complaining about the way an entire industry does business, it does not even seem like you have ever worked in the restaurant industry, and if you have, it was not for an extended period of time, or you would have been visited by all the other purveyors in the city who get up every day, and do the same thing to feed and provide for their own family.

Worst sales people ever! They stop by unanounced, and even after you ask them to stop calling, dropping in and e-​mailing– they still do. Get the hint and leave people alone when they ask you too.