Foodservice pay

Discussion in 'LTL and Local Delivery Trucking Forum' started by Wecj3381, Feb 20, 2021.

  1. Wecj3381

    Wecj3381 Light Load Member

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    Feb 6, 2012
    Syracuse, NY
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    Working for US Foods out of Clifton Park, NY, they switched pay from an incentive based plan(stops+cases+miles) to straight hourly. They then gave a nice hourly raise. All drivers that were there during the switch were grandfathered in, and are paid hourly OR incentive, whichever pays more each week. But new drivers are straight hourly. The hourly rate is really good. $26.10 to start, and climbs to max rate of $30.75 after 1 year.

    The job is M-F, home every night, no weekends. The issue I see now is so many newer drivers just don’t have the foodservice working speed, and why would they care working at an hourly rate? It seems like an odd move in an industry that’s built on working speed, they’ve incentivized drivers to slow down.

    I’ve worked at US Foods for almost 10 years and have bought into hourly. I could tear through these routes, but now I take my time. Work my 55-57 hours a week and take my $2k check every week. Wondering how many other foodservice companies are paying straight hourly vs incentive and which you all prefer?
     
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  3. Cardfan89

    Cardfan89 Medium Load Member

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    Missouri
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    I work at a division in the Midwest and its always been hourly but I bid a route that has a lot of miles to maximize my income. Also I would rather drive 400 miles and unload 500 cases than stay in town and buck off 1000.
     
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  4. ChaoSS

    ChaoSS Road Train Member

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    Sep 20, 2014
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    30 bucks an hour? A good driver making case pay will do much better than that.
     
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  5. jmz

    jmz Road Train Member

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    Mar 9, 2018
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    That hourly rate isn’t anything special, it’s on par with what they pay in similar sized cities in the midwest. When I worked for US Foods, my motivation was simply competing with myself to beat the estimated delivery windows. Not to mention avoiding poor customer attitudes that come with showing up late. When I finished, I would be more than happy to have my day over and go home, but I also frequently called in to see if there was anyone in my area who needed help, and I’d go help them for a few hours. If I wanted more hours, I could volunteer for a 5th day.

    If it comes down to it, you can be disciplined by management for constantly missing delivery windows and requiring help from other drivers to finish your route.
     
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  6. Wecj3381

    Wecj3381 Light Load Member

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    67
    Feb 6, 2012
    Syracuse, NY
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    sort of. If you have low miles and good cases, keeping your hours around 40 a week and making $1700 or so is good money. But incentive hurts you if you are forced to work more hours. That pay gap closes when your hours go up. Like most foodservice places, we are short handed. Which means we are covering extra areas, and being routed 12-14 hours a day more often than not. Not to mention if you don’t have the seniority to get local routes and have 200-300 miles a day or more, incentive starts becoming hard to justify.

    Also, they keep giving yearly hourly raises while incentive, since it was grandfathered in to the pay scale, isn’t even getting raises anymore. The gap has closed outside of a few drivers that have the local run under 100 miles a day.
     
  7. Wecj3381

    Wecj3381 Light Load Member

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    67
    Feb 6, 2012
    Syracuse, NY
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    I’ll have been with US Foods for 10 years this July. I’ve never once needed help to finish a route. I meet my time windows, and honestly don’t really care if customers are unhappy when I get there. I’m 39 now, and am done killing myself trying to get home in 8 hours. On pace for 100-110k this year with much less stress taking my scheduled breaks instead of working through them and just slowing up my pace. We have a few new drivers, one of them is taking 2 hours more than his routed time to finish routes and management is handcuffed because they need the body. They are rarely getting applicants. Tough to get people to do this kind of work. And when you pay people hourly, it’s hard to force them to speed up. As far as comparable salaries, us foods pays more than Sysco, McLane, and any other that I’ve seen locally.
     
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  8. mpd240

    mpd240 Road Train Member

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    I work for Reinhart. This year we switched to case pay. I used to get paid by the pound. Some drivers make more now. I’m one who lost about 6% of my gross. Same work less pay. I work in a rural are and it is still one of the best paying jobs with good Benifits. So until something better comes along this is it. I also like the 4 day work week.
     
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  9. jmz

    jmz Road Train Member

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    Mar 9, 2018
    Great Plains
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    Ok? Sounds like there’s just a completely different attitude at your location. Everything I said holds true for the one I used to work at. Milking the clock was never a big problem.
     
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  10. CoreyL

    CoreyL Bobtail Member

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    Feb 27, 2021
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    Also work for a food service company in the Midwest. Has always paid hourly with no case/weight incentives. If you're driving more than 250 miles on a day you get mileage plus hourly and most of the weekly routes mix hourly and mileage days. Never missed incentive pay.
     
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  11. Russian Rabbit

    Russian Rabbit Road Train Member

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    Jan 3, 2016
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    When i was with repbublic national it was hourly. Also, Pepsi around me is hourly.

    i think food service really needs to go to salary with incentives and bonuses. 2K minimum 4 days a week, days only,no weekends.
     
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