Industry
Food and beverage plants: empty IBC totes
Supermarkets, roasters and foodservice distributors cluster in Prince George’s County, Prince William County and Warren County. Their totes held ingredients, oils and cleaners, and the history decides what each can become.
- Usual last contents
- Ingredients, oils, syrups, cleaners
- Usual grades
- Food-grade history sale, as-is, recycle
- Where in the metro
- Prince George’s, Prince William, Warren
- Named employers
- Giant Food, US Foodservice, Martin Brower, Sysco
The big names are distribution, not tote counts
Giant Food employs 2,197 people among Prince George’s County’s major employers and Shoppers supermarkets 1,484. In Prince William County the 50 largest employers include US Foodservice and The Martin Brower Company. In Warren County they include Sysco and Interbake Foods. We say nothing about any company’s totes. We list them because they are where food-chain empties start.
Ingredients versus cleaners
A plant that mixes products takes ingredients in totes. Its sanitation team takes cleaning chemicals in totes. The ingredient totes may carry a food-only history. The cleaner totes never do. Grading depends on which a given tote was.
| Kind | Last contents | Next life |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredient | Oils, syrups, concentrates | Food-grade history sale or reconditioning |
| Sanitation | Cleaners, sanitizers | Chemical empties: rinse or recycle |
| Unknown | Nothing recorded | Recycle only |
Landover and the grocery cluster
Landover has Eight O’Clock Coffee’s production plant and Giant Food’s headquarters area. The Prince George’s County page lists the roads.
What to say in a request
State the product, the supplier and the dates if you have them. The record is the asset.
Why the food chain sends two kinds of tote
A food plant has a product side and a sanitation side. On the product side, totes carry oils, syrups, concentrates and liquid ingredients. On the sanitation side, they carry the chemicals that clean the product side. Both are normal. Neither tells you about the other.
A distributor with a cold chain adds a third side: the maintenance of trucks and refrigeration. Those totes carry coolants and cleaners.
Records at a plant
Food safety programs make plants record what goes into every process line. That helps: a tote whose last product is on the record is a tote with a food-only history, and the record can be passed on. A plant that keeps its receiving logs has a good start.
- Receiving log with product and supplier.
- Tote number or lot.
- The date it was emptied.
- The date it was moved to the empties area.
The counties
Prince George’s County, Prince William County and Warren County are where the market research places food and grocery distribution. Landover has the coffee plant. Nobody has confirmed a pickup in Prince William County.
Questions people ask
Are food-plant totes always food grade?
No. A tote is food grade only if everything it held was food. A sanitizer tote from the same plant is not.
What if I cannot find the records?
Then the history cannot be shown and the tote is graded as an ordinary used tote.
Do you buy food-plant totes?
We grade them and match clean ones to buyers. We name no price.
Keep reading
- Food-grade emptiesBreweries, distilleries and food plants: how to keep a tote's food-grade history intact so it can be sold for food or water use.
- Prince George's County, MDPrince George’s County runs on trade, transport and utilities: supermarkets, coffee roasting, breweries. See the roads, the cities and the MDE rules.
- Food-grade historyTotes with a documented food-only history, for stock water, irrigation and food use. What the paperwork shows and what it does not.
Sources
- Prince George's County economic brief (Maryland Commerce)
- Prince William County top employers (Virginia Works)
- Warren County top employers (Virginia Works)
- Landover, Maryland (Wikipedia)
Last reviewed . General guidance, not legal advice.