When you dip your nacho into the cheese sauce at Rio Grande in Huntington, you may not consider the path taken by the cheese before it got to your mouth.
Take a bite of chicken Caesar salad at Bennigan's in Point Pleasant, and you're probably not concerned about the journey of the lettuce.
But fortunately for those Tri-Staters who like to eat out, and to have shelves well-stocked with their favorite foods at the grocery store, there are people who do think about these things.
The job of wholesale food suppliers is to make sure that food takes the quickest, cleanest, most temperature-safe route from the farm to the shelves.
It's an industry that has seen many changes over the years as the U.S. Department of Agriculture tweaks regulations, and as health and safety threats have arisen.
Grocery and merchant wholesale is an area of commerce that employed about 600 Cabell County workers in 2007.
For Carolyn Roy and Randy Blatt, co-owners of Bucks Fruit Co. in Huntington, a food safety initiative that is sweeping through some grocery stores, such as Wal-Mart, is not going to shake things up, like it may other suppliers.
Bucks was one of the first companies in the area to become certified for meeting the international Global Food Safety Initiative standards.
It did so about seven years ago.
Bucks ships a variety of produce, fruits and vegetables, along with some kitchen-prepared items such as coleslaw and macaroni salad, to local restaurants and grocery stores. It also provides chopped vegetables to restaurants.
"We make a lot of stuff for restaurants so they can make it quick -- anything to help cut down on their labor costs," Blatt said.
Its produce comes from farms all over the globe, not so much local farms, and it ships out to companies within a 100-mile radius from the 7th Avenue shop, Blatt said.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks in 2001, Bucks decided to raise its own safety standards.
It uses a food safety program called "Hazard Analysis through Critical Control Points," which focuses primarily on storage temperature.
The Bucks Web site, www.bucksproduce.net, says its coolers have acceptable temperature ranges for each type of produce, and that detailed emergency plans are in place if cooler temperatures deviate from the ideal range.
Bucks delivery trucks have refrigerated units built in as well, and that's one thing that has been an advantage to the business, Blatt said. When it transports foods, it groups them together according to the temperature needed in the truck. Other companies may freeze some foods that don't need to be frozen, which could alter them, he said.
Bucks has been around for 60 years, founded in 1947 by Roy's husband, Buck Roy. He died in 1991, and she took over. Blatt joined her about eight years ago.
The company has experienced changes ever since. Lately, oil prices have affected business.
"The price of fuel has increased, delivery has increased, plastic has increased," Blatt said. "This is a very tight business. There's not a lot of profit margin."
One of the difficulties of being a small company with high safety standards is that prices have to be a little bit higher, Blatt said.
"We battle people undercutting all the time -- restaurants buying food (that's not third-party inspected) because they can get it for 50 cents cheaper," Blatt said.
Still, "It's a good moral concept to put clean food on the table," said Roy, who's been in the business for about 30 years.
Another local food supplier that's seen some changes over the years is S.S. Logan Packing Co., near the Ohio River on 21st Street. It packs and distributes wholesale meats -- beef, chicken and pork -- and 20 varieties of cheeses, Vice President Rick Logan said.
It was started by his great-grandfather as small meat shop at 1935 3rd Ave., where Yesterday's nightclub was at one time, and later moved to its current location and became a slaughterhouse.
Logan is now owned by Nester Logan, and it was just about seven years ago when it chained gears a bit.
It no longer slaughters cattle on site, but brings the beef in from out-of-state, mostly from the Midwest, Rick Logan said. The hooks where the cattle were drained still hang from the ceiling, but now the chilly slaughterhouse is filled with cardboard boxes.
Some of the beef comes in large, cylindrical cardboard containers that hold more than 1,800 pounds of boneless meat to make into patties.
These days, Logan focuses on repackaging some of the items to make things easier for restaurants and small grocery stores. It will shred cheese, which seems to be the preferred form for more and more restaurants. It saves them the trouble.
Logan also makes its own "Cavalier" brand of hot dogs, bacon and other meat products.
It has daily health inspections, and all the products come with a USDA stamp. Any damaged packaging results in further inspection and then another stamp.
Some of the advantages of being a smaller company are better communication and a closer relationship with customers, Rick Logan said. But it faces a challenge in that it can't always offer the best price because it buys things in smaller volume, he said. It can't withstand a loss like some of the bigger companies can.
The USDA keeps the meat industry on its toes with new regulations, but the ongoing changes are for the best, he said.
"It's public protection," Rick Logan said.
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