LEWISVILLE, Texas - Providing fresh, quality food products to millions of hungry customers is a top priority of The Southland Corporation, operator and franchisor of the 7-Eleven convenience-store chain. But, when the company contracted in March 1994 with the Prime Deli Corporation, a state-of-the-art food assembly facility, freshness took on a whole new dimension.

Utilizing just-in-time manufacturing principles, Prime Deli of Lewisville, Texas, assembles and delivers more that 20,000 sandwiches and salads a day for all 244 Dallas/Fort Worth-area 7-Eleven stores. Says Prime Deli plant manager Craig Weidner, "No other convenience-store chain can match our freshness guarantee." USDA-certified, Southland's freshness guarantee is made possible by Prime Deli's progressive facility design and highly choreographed system centered around quick assembly and chilled, even temperatures. Specified into the facility is a Low-Throw Series DuctSox® air distribution system.

By distributing 40 degrees F or less cool air evenly throughout the 24,000-square-foot facility, the DuctSox system plays an integral role in quality control and employee productivity at Prime Deli. To ensure even air distribution, the installation required a total of nine DuctSox, 50-feet long and 2 feet in diameter.

By controlling cold, localized drafts, DuctSox made Prime Deli a more comfortable place to work - a boost to employee morale and plant productivity

Prime Deli was pleased to discover that DuctSox also filter the diffused air. The USDA-approved DuctSox fabric provides a secondary line of protection against harmful bacteria and other airborne particulate - as small as 1-5 microns - above and beyond what their standard HVAC filtration system collects.

Publication date: 01/05/2004