What's the difference between bulk beer delivery and sideload?

Bulk is usually pallets at a time, usually with a lift gate and an electric pallet jack. Side loader your lumping the whole wagon with a 2 wheeler

 

To the tune of 2000 - 3000 cases a day. No thanks!

 

It's worse than food service. Every cart load is 300-400 LBS and they don't pay enough

 

Yup

 

I worked for a soda company driving both, so it may be a bit different. My company split the stops into 3 catagories. Bulk, mini-bulk and, side load. Bulk was palatized loads in a dry box tractor trailer and it focused on grocery and big box stores. Mini bulk was also palatized and focused on convenience stores, side load was not palatized and focused on restaurants and bars we had both straight trucks and tractors with side load trailers.

Most bulk routes started with their biggest stops that were pallet drop stops, sales people and merchandizers would take care of it once you got it checked in with the receiver. We'd typically see 2-3k cases per truck and usually less than 10 stops. Although sometimes the volume could spike and you'd be reloading multiple times. Most of the stores only had one receiver so you would get stuck waiting in line at pretty much all your stops. Then last couple stops on the route would be some mini bulk stops like drug store or "dollar" stores where you are downstacking the pallets onto your hand truck, wheeling it in, checking it in with the manager on duty and getting them into the cooler or stocking the shelves yourself.

Mini bulk was also palatized but 90% of the stops would have to be downstacked and brought into the stores on the hand truck. The volume on theses routes was usually about 500 - 600 cases, and 15-20 stops, and you will be touching almost every case 1-3 times. I felt these were the hardest routes and they are probably lumped in with bulk for this beer company if they are offering it to beginners.

Side load had no palatized stops, if it came off your truck it's was by hand. Most of the stops could be delivered on one hand truck. 100-200 cases a day was typical with as many 35 stops. I preferred side load because it was easier on my knees and back to unload from truck height than downstacking off a pallet on the ground.

How companies divide their routes varies company by company. Some will run a lot of c stores off their side loads which would really up the volume.

Hope this helps

 

We made more on inside deliveries than the freight paid.

 

Things may have changed, but when I ran beer, there wasn’t any bulk beer deliveries. I pulled Coors and PBR, Colt45, Olde English, Heineken (sp?)Amstel, Mickeys…etc. The Bud driver delivered more than Coors and Miller, but even Bud didn’t do bulk. Because we were moving Colt 45, we were number one in the hood. You could unload an entire truck in 1 hood.

“Colors” came out, and the various hoods decided on red or blue. Our uniforms were blue. Mine was black and I wore a cowboy hat. Rough areas and beer was COD. Strangely, everyone was cool with the beer man.

Now, the farther out in the sticks you went, the more PBR you moved. And the more methheads you’d run into. Methheads are a bigger problem than the crips and bloods, so keep your eyes open.

Hit the grocers early, then the convenience stores, then the bars and pubs. It’s hard work, but not all of us can be fat butterball limp waisted sidewalk sissies.