Do beverage drivers delivery throughout the state or do they stick to a certain area?

Back when I drove for Pepsi you got assigned her out every single day and barely made any money

 

I worked as a beverage delivery driver-in-training for one whole day. We delivered adult beverages to hotels, resorts, and bars on an assigned route.

A dozen trucks (12 foot high straight trucks) or so went out each morning on their various routes covering the town and outlying areas.

Different beverage distribution companies have their own territories to cover and so on.

Hated the work. We had to stack loaded boxes of booze on a dolly in the truck, then wheel the dolly down the ramp and into the establishment accepting delivery. Cases could weigh fifty pounds.

This repetition over the course of the day killed my back.

 

I've been working at Coke for a couple of months so my experiences are limited to that company. We have several different types of routes. Blend, which is your small stores (gas stations, dollar stores, chain pharmacies, etc.), cold bottle, which are the side loaders delivering to restaurants, offices, and other businesses too small to be worth putting on a blend truck, and full service, which fills coke machines.

Blend trucks run a dedicated route in a dedicated area, same stores on any given day. You offload the pallets at your store, bring the product inside, check in, and stock the store, putting any backstock where it goes in the cooler. There's typically anywhere from 6-12 stops, which can range from 40-200 cases per stop. On any given day you can do anywhere from 300 to 1000 cases a day in the busy season.

Cold bottle runs a dedicated area on any given day, and you could be delivering to any place in that area, depending on who's made an order. Each stop has it's own bay (with the exception of having a mixed pallet if there's a lot of stops that are only getting a few cases). Typically, you open the bay where your stop is located, throw it on the dolly, and kick it off where they tell you to. You can do anywhere from 14-32 stops in a day, but each stop is only around 10-20 cases. Usually around 200-300 cases.

I haven't done full service yet, so I can't give you any insight there, but they also run smaller 1 ton side load bay trucks and I imagine the routes are the same as cold bottle.

As far as the equipment, don't expect much in amenities. Some have radios and a/c, some don't. Same with air ride seats. Also, if you're not in shape, this job will make or break you. It's fast paced, heavy lifting, back breaking work. As far as pay, yeah you could do better, but you could also do worse. I'm not making as much as I could doing OTR or P&D, but I'm still making twice as much as I was at the last job I had before I got my CDL and the benefits are great.

 

I know a guy that delivered beer for awhile.
Only things he got out of that was a bad back, bad attitude, basement full of free beer.

 

I used to work for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. I'd say they were the easiest of all. They didn't have as many cases on the trucks like the other aforementioned companies. I made decent money. I've fared far better running OTR. There were routes within a territory. I worked for the Nashville location so we ran territories in Nashville and surrounding counties. We ran routes in Crossville and other points around the Cumberland Plateau, but a driver with a doubles endorsement had to take 2 pups out there nightly and bring the empties back since they were a bit of distance. You should be home nightly, but its hella long hours if you gotta commute like I did.

 

Let's be real after 2 years of asking these kinds of questions, you aren't getting your CDL any time soon.

 

Lol to be fair, I wrestled with it for over a year before I decided to pull the trigger. It seemed glorious in the beginning, but once I learned it was going to be a lifestyle change, I wrestled with it even longer. Then knowing that it would be adventurous, steady money, and most of all, independence on the job(which I highly value), made me go for it.

 

I hope yall brought your lunch