What Are Shippers and Receivers like for Milk Transport?

@insipidtoast --

Insipid.....given the content of your updated "wish list"...and what you've said in other posts....it might well be time for you to give these people a good, hard look:

CAREERS & APPRENTICE PROGRAM | wdtmilk.com

I see postings for OTR drivers with this carrier. Mostly from Texas over to Utah, & Idaho.

Probably most of your running/lanes would be in the southwest, and far west. Lots and lots of desert/mountains/southwestern scenery!

Very, very little.....to no northeast.

The better money with them would of course be in their OTR positions.

I haven't worked for them, & don't know anyone who has....so you would need to inquire within....to find out double-bunk specs, inverter ratings, pet policies, etc. I think you will find that the spouse can ride along--but not any kids.

If you live somewhere from Missouri to Texas, I think you would be in their hiring area.

Be sure to find out what their "detention" pay is, at loading/unloading. Example: if you have to sit for a while (and that does happen, with dairy) in a line of rigs waiting to off-load cream at a facility--how soon after going on duty does your detention pay start? And what (else) do you have to do (if anything) to get it?

I think the following is the worst that could happen:

You work for them for say, a year....maybe a bit longer (i.e., what it takes to really know what's there), and then you decide (for whatever reasons) you don't like it.

The resulting payoff: NOW.....you have 12+ months of BULK TANKER experience on your resume (if you don't already have this)....from an established, easily-recognized carrier.

This experience later opens all kinds of doors in the tanker industry.

--Lual

 

I did milk, being from a dairy area. Pick up hours are when its ready, and that can be quite irregular. And sometimes hectic.
If you thought tanker or cyro was too much work, milk is not for you. More than once i joined in the milking to help finish load. Table milk goes to processer whic is in city. Cheese plants are usually outside towns.
Pay is not as good as liquid bulk or frozen

 

Milk/dairy runs the gamut. Pretty all of the above. Farms are obviously out in the sticks and can range from a tiny mom and pop operation to massive co-ops with multiple barns each a mile and half away from each other down dirt roads.

Consignees are almost always dairy plants. Some operated by large grocery chains you recognize, others are a mystery. Unloading milk usually runs about 1.5-2 hrs as they wash the tank out after. Cream takes longer. Very few have specific operating hours and most I have been to run 24/7.

Range of people work at these places, some are decent and professional, others expect you to know what to do when you get there and get cranky if you don't follow their procedure...that no-one told you about beforehand.

All in all, I am not a fan of hauling dairy, but luckily I don't do that much of it and we have a few drop and hook setups when I do.

 

Around my area there are a good number of large dairies (thousands of cows)and some small. But mostly large. The large diaries obviously ship milk 24/7. Some are drop and hook by the looks of it. Cheese plant and milk plant are both within 30 miles I'd say. This is just a generalization of my area I'm sure there are some hauls outside of what I said

 

Also I run a feed truck at night in my rural area. There's 3 types of trucks I see at night. Feed, livestock and MILK

 

Where I live in northern Florida we had 20 dairy farms now it's only 4 in my town I have a couple cousins that haul milk from dairy farms to milk plant in DeLand Orlando Lakeland Plant City and winter Haven or tampa I believe they only do 2 loads a day probably even 1 if the plant not back up with a bunch of trucks waiting to get unloaded and for the loading process it only takes them 50 minutes or 1 hour to load the milk