I placed a number of stone chests (properly designated for stone and ores) right near my mine entrance so that my workers can place the materials in there instead of making trips back and forth.
Instead, they often avoid the chests entirely and make a long trek to the stockpile which clearly wastes time.
Is this a bug? Or am I doing something wrong?
The only solution I see is to delete my stockpiles altogether, this forces them to use chests, but now I can’t use stockpiles.
Remove the stone from the list of stored items in the stocks. For the supply of crafters, use special supply containers with a priority of filling
Is there a workaround for this behavior to store food? I have the same problem with my cook and my dining area. There are a chest and a finished work shelf for cooked food beside each other but the Hearthlings prefer to walk across my whole town to put the food in a stockpile.
That they prioritize stockpiles over chests that are shorter away is really annoiing.
Use the method presented by @EregionChannel
But with food
Thanks, I found my problem. I had one stockpile set to ‘all’ because the food items from the archipelago mod can’t be stored in containers. I’ve changed the filter now and won’t use the archipelago food until I managed to make it compatible with better storage.
just did it. There is a better storage version of archipelago I posted for those who want it. check the mod thread near the bottom. 
This is an issue that does need to be addressed especially with the new appeal - chests have positive appeal, stockpiles have negative appeal - chests need to be prioritized over stockpiles and itemized chests need to be prioritized over “all” chests - especially when when using certain mods that add items so you need to have storage set to all to have them stored - the “all” chests fill up with everything then items are left on the ground because the itemized chests aren’t used first