Inside the Potato Chip Business (Maybe of Interest for Non CDL Drivers)

mmm tater chips.......

 

Frito lay and Wise potato chips pay the class A cdl guys well.
Wise in Berwick PA is a teamster shop.

 

I was a partner in a snack food distribution business; primarily candy and meat snacks (jerky and pepperoni). There was one particular competitor that was always playing dirty; lying to customers about us, moving our product (a real no-no), lying to wholesalers/manufacturers about us, etc. One day I pulled up to a customer just after he did and he was in the back of his truck sorting product.

So I locked him in.

I won the war.

 

It's fun to go grocery shopping and get some payback to some vender that's been a smartarse in the past. Play with the product by moving it or covering it with another vendors product. They don't think about that when they're being a smart arse to other people.

 

Very informative video Mike.

Whether you want to call them Route Sales Drivers, Merchandisers, DSD, or whatever, I always knew bread and chip guys worked very similar to each other, but I never realized how similar they actually were. The whole operation seems to run exactly the same for both. Even the sales room looks EXACTLY like what our sales room looked like over at IBC.

I'm not quite sure how chips guys get paid. I know we got a couple Frito Lay drivers on TTR, but bread guys get a base salary of around $200 and a commission for everything sold. Our route sales drivers made around $80-100k. Start times were around midnight to 4am and LOOONG hours. 12-14 hours a day was pretty much the norm, depending on route territory. Bimbo Bakeries sales drivers make just about the same. I knew a couple Stroehman sales drivers that started off around $40k their first year and made on average around $80k a year. Their top sales drivers made over $130k and only worked 8 hours a day, but since he was the senior man, he got the best runs, which normally were the Supermarkets and Walmart. The vast majority of Bimbo's route drivers are union employees, just like IBC was. On top of their salary, they also got fully paid benefits and a pension. But needless to say, Bimbo also hires Independent Contractors as well. So does Flowers Foods (who now owns Wonder Bread), which uses nothing but contractors.


Independent Contractors are basically owner operators that bid on route territory. They run there own business as distributors of whoever they work for, whether it be chips or bread. Usually they have to have their own delivery van, insurance, LLC, etc., or they can lease it from the company they work for. And since they basically run their own business, they can hire other people to make deliveries for them. But both of these companies are now being sued for misclassification of job titles because both of them were classifying their Independent Contractors as owner operators, when in reality, they were actual employees of both companies. Both micromanaged how their operations were to be handled, giving mandated rules that needed to be followed, or the contract was to be null and void. So in essence, the O/O's couldn't run their business the way they wanted to, and had to follow both Bimbo's and Flowers policy, which pretty much classified them as employees, rather than distributors. It was a way for both companies to have their products delivered without having to give out benefits, retirement, or OT.

So anybody thinking about being a route sales driver, it's probably best to work as an employee, rather than a so called Independent Contractor.

 

Those DSD Route Sales Drivers do make good money. It all depends on which territory and accounts they work with.

If you ever stop by a 7-11, or a Walmart that's open 24/7 late at night or early morning, you'll see these drivers making deliveries stocking shelves and putting up promotional stands and bringing back stales. It is physical labor, but not in the sense that your carrying around hundreds of pounds. It is after all, chips or bread.

I remember when we sponsored the movie Talladega Nights-The Story Of Ricky Bobby. I had to deliver pallets of life size cardboard cutouts of Will Ferrell to our depots so the sales drivers can place them in their territories. It was funny going to the Supermarkets and seeing Will Ferrell standing in the middle of the aisles selling our product's.