Your base pile is composed of the ingredients to make living soil - minerals (sand, local crushed rock, rockdust...), carbon (cardboard, straw, newspaper...), your living creatures/workforce, and then you add in the food that your creatures and cultures will break down slowly but surely.

The holes shown in the diagram below are filled with your food scraps, with one week dumping in one area, the next week dumping into another area, and the next week dumped into a third area, etc. After a few weeks (or months depending on your climate), the scraps will be broken down as your mechanical workers migrate around your pile.