My Trip To The Dairy

So we've had some people on here ask about milk trucking. Dairy is fairly interesting because they use all kinds of different equipment unlike where I work and our homogeneous fleet of 28' most 28' and the occasional 50' trailer but those are only used for certain things either chains or volume and that's it anything else is 28' no questions asked which is cool because you can drag a 28' around a tad easier, but as one member said on here just because it's a 28' trailer don't let it fool you the place you go and the loads you have it will all be big enough, dairy though you get all kinds of cool stuff and fun trucks to drive.

Dairy though actually isn't a bad way to go I think if you want to be home everyday now the draw back is you'll be getting up at 1:30am on Saturday morning to work on Saturday and you might have some long days, but you might also have some short days and if you have a little mama and some off spring running around all over the place (which I don't have either of those things) back at the home stead and you need to make a few bucks because all those things are really expensive and the beer truck or car dealership or cement truck business is a little slow and the food companies just might not be your thing and you don't want to do LTL extraboard and sit at home and wait for the phone to ring because mama doesn't like it when daddy isn't bringing home the BACON then maybe dairy is a good alternative for you.

I know people complain about this industry, but you really do have a lot of choices of place to work and jobs to have. Personally I love it even though there have been times when I've been pushed way past my limit and ready to burst, but if you asked me what else I would do for a career the answer is I really honestly don't know, there's other interests that I have, but I don't know I think I got it pretty good where I am right now.

Although this isn't just bebopping down the road trucking is way way way harder then it looks and it's a lot of work. Those big trucks hold a lot of product and when you have a delivery route to do you have a pretty big job to do you've got a lot of stops to do and your collecting money sometimes and your solving problems for customers and even doing some sales work because the company you work for might have a new product and customers are going to be asking you about new products and stuff it's a JOB on top of that your in charge of safe truck operation and the entire company is counting on you at the end of the day to get the ball across the finish line so they can get paid and have some revenue coming in. You know though in dairy you might have some big grocery store stops where you back up to the dock and 150 crates come off.

The sales people might go out and hang posters and find places for you to go, but at the end of the day there work doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't get that ball across the finish line and at the same time though you have no job if they don't go out and pound the pavement so it's a twofer both need each other.

Anyhow though tonight I took a drive by the largest Dairy producer in Ohio native to Cleveland Dairymen's they service all of Ohio and western PA and some Indian too. They have no drop lots and do not pull doubles they run every striaght truck, tractor and trailer out of there yard on Cleveland, Ohio's west side. They service a ton of school districts, C-Stores and grocery stores both small-medium and large format. Basically they go anywhere and everywhere. Schools, Old Folks Homes, Hospitals, C-Stores, Restaurants, Ice Cream Places the whole shooting match there really isn't to much they don't do.

Anyhow money wise they are paid usually by the hour and it's alright not as much as food although not that lower but more then beer plus not that much merchandising.

Dairymen's was bought out in 2002 by Borden Dairy the Dairymen's the company employees 150 people and has estimated sales volume of 49 million dollars a year.


See there's a lift gate all the milk for the non-dock stops comes out the side using the lift gate and as lang called it the Milkman hook.

This is the trailer yard behind the plant. They have a big kind of gravel yard that's filled with just trailers. Some of them are older and I noticed do not have license plates so I don't think they use them really for routes they must just be spares or used for storage, however nothing looks unroad worth.



See the lift gate under neath the side door. They have a lot of trailers they must have close to 100 pieces of equipment the plants really big it's like it's own city.

 

These guys at Dairymen's are union as well I think the $21 mark is about what they make too.

 

These guys are constantly hiring I think it's the same deal political promises union stuff and some guys get tired of that, I ran into one of there drivers last year at a stop and he said he had about enough wanted to go work at Pitt-Ohio the LTL company from Pittsburgh.

 

Also there is another dairy known as Smiths Dairy located in Orville, Ohio they are pretty big as well and do a lot of Convenient Food Marts in Lorain County. They have a drop warehouse in Elyria, Ohio and they do some Circle K stores and a couple big grocery stores and places just like Dairymen's does. They are the manufacturer of Ruggles Ice Cream and make other delicious things like sour cream and cheeses all stuff that tastes great and is very high in cholesterol.

Smiths Dairy sometime in the 2000s took over the production and distribution for Sunshine Farms which was a homegrown grass roots dairy that started in Lorain County back in 1911 delivery milk via horse and buggy to residents in west Elyria, Ohio twice a day because back in those days there was no refrigeration.

Sunshine Farms opened up about 27 Convenient Food Marts and in there height they had 700 employees and there own private truck fleet, but times changed and I don't know what happened and the company went the other direction here is what is left of there once proud and strong private truck fleet:


The company now has like 1 truck and 7 stores and Smiths Dairy Handles everything else for them.
The Red International is for sales I don't know how long it's been since it last moved. It has 2003 Bicentennial license plates on it so it must have been used around that time. If anyone has there own food business it looks like it might be an alright truck probably needs some repairs it's certainly a little older.

 

I gotcha ha-ha sorry that was pretty funny. Dairymen's has milk trucked in from a couple different farms, back in the day Dairymen's and it still says it on there building was known as a company called Oberlin Farm's and Dairymen's was the brand they made. There's a dairy farm in Rock Creek, Ohio that has a 5000 gallon if I had to guess tank wagon similar to this only green:

That goes back and fourth all day delivering milk and they also have some tractor trailer guys from other dairy farms that produce unpasteurized milk that go to the dairy for pasteurization. Dairymen's is pretty famous for there milk they do make ice cream, whip cream and other dairy standards, but I don't see there ice cream and stuff as much certain people have it and certain don't I guess.

Anyhow I'm going to go get something to eat and grab some pictures of the Smith Dairy Operation and will talk a little bit more about the milk business later on today. Lots of good information here on Truckers Report this is by far one of the best online communities out there much much much much much much well it's really no comparison better then most if not all dating sites ha-ha!