Food service vs soda delivery

Well the answer is yes you'll make more at the food company. What food company are you going to work for? Yes you may have more stops , but there's no empty no merchandising your not having to bother picking up payment. Most of the time. Driving wise might be a hard transition at first, but you'll get it it'll be ugly for the first 6 months, but after that It'll get better and before long you'll be fine. I wouldn't over think it, you'll probably be fine.

Remember there going to train you a little if you have the will and determination you'll make it just fine.

 

I use to work for dr. Pepper then switch to sysco. Food service is wayyy harder but no more stocking shelves and cooler. There's more product, smaller product like cheese or seasonings, and also heavy stuff, heavier than the bag in the box like chicken and bags of flour.

More up and down the ramp and 3 different areas u have to organize and put the product where they want it. Dry food, cooler and freezer.

I rather stick with pop than food if I had a choice. Climb the ladder and get a bulk spot, now that's easy work there.

 

You can have a long stop I've had them some stops are heavy and some are not. Physically demanding it's up and down depends like anything else.

More windshield time with food service you cover more miles not to say we don't have two stops at one place, but there's more windshield time.

Our stuff is all scanned with a scanner checking in is a minimal because of that, your not maneuvering pallets or spending time getting checked in as much or collecting money so you save a lot of time on that end.


Anyhow here's 60 something pages of reading.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/the-food-service-rant-thread.288378/

 

Some cases are even lighter then 30lbs, these food companies sell everything and anything you need to run a nursing home, bar and grill or institution. They have beyond food, we have pots, pans, dishes you go into a restaurant and the place mat, the plate the silver ware the cup your drinking out of the food your eating the pan it was cooked in the utensils used to cook it the dishmachine used to wash the dishes and the soap in the dishmachine as well as the chemicals to clean the restaurant we sell all of that. From the broom and dust pan to the mop and mop bucket to the trash can. I've had brand new 30 gallon trash can's loaded in the dry section of my truck.

Some cases are light not every customer is a heavy hitter, you might get the local little league snack bar that buys Big Leauge Chew or the local golf cours that buys hot dogs (big seller in the summer) hot dog buns and chips.

We do a lot of schools where I work and schools buy a ton of dry grocery my new route the schools go through bottled water like crazy. Freezer gets heavy too.

Stop time all depends man. You can have a big hotel for 7,000lbs but everything goes in the same room and you can just dynomite everything in.

Or you can have places where the paper products go over here and the other dry groceries go over there and the frozen goes here and the cooler goes over there.

Some stops you can't get the truck all that close too. We do some places in food courts at shopping malls those places are a pain.


@LoneCowboy can tell you all about working for a customized food service company vs a broad line one. Customized is special chain restaurant stuff.

You could possibly spend all day at one stop sometimes. You get a place like Olive Garden and every place has it's own personality that might take 13 pallets of food and it might take 3+ hours to get it all off broken down and put away.

You ever see MBM deliver to Red Lobster. They will be bringing a pallet off the truck with the lift gate that's 10+ feet tall all shrink wrapped together that pallet could weigh 3,000lbs you have a ton of cases.

Some stops in the chain line are two wheeler and others use lift gates. It depends on the company a little bit as well.

We do quite a bit of stairs and you get a big city down town route there's a lot of goofy backing into buildings parking garages and running stuff in from the street, there's a lot man every stop is different it's difficult to quantify.

Who are you going to work for and what is the job they are posting?

 

well, let's see. By far the heaviest things on the pallet were meat (occasionally) and the soda syrup. I never really wanted to be a soda guy lifting that stuff all day. I think 25-30lbs is pretty average guess for the cases. Some things are nothing and some things are big but light (frozen bread), but even bigger hamburger patties or fries only weigh about 30/35lbs.

If you can do soda or beer, you can do food.