Minimum experience to get into food distribution

Call them right away.

I was working for a beer distributor at the time I put my Sysco application in. Didn’t hear anything back from Sysco. Got pissed rolling beer one day and just decided to call and check on my Sysco application. Sysco asked me if I could come in the next day and the rest was history. Worked at Sysco from 1997-2012.

 

10-4.
Don’t get discouraged. You definitely qualify. Almost 100% of food service delivery drivers worked for some sort of a beverage company prior to joining the food distribution business.

Maybe give it a week and try calling again. Sysco never stops hiring delivery drivers. The turnover rate is really high. It’s a pretty tough job, but anyone can do it if they want too. Just show up everyday and do your job and nobody says a word. I won Haul of Fame at Sysco 5x. It consist of perfect attendance, no accidents, performance on route (high case count per hour), great customer service & no complaints by any customers.

 

I understand.
Hopefully you get on before then. At least you sound motivated to make it happen.

You should be fine money wise once you get on. We were paid every week for years, but they changed to every two weeks. You should do $2,800 at least every two weeks starting out.

Sysco drivers use to get a referral bonus for bringing new drivers on. If you see a Sysco driver on your route, write your name & # down and pass it along to him. Explain how you have an application already in and now your just waiting. The driver can pass your info to the director of transportation and hopefully expedite the process.

 

Food service usually pays good ,some better than others ,but it is all labor intensive back breaking work. I have heard Mclane pays well. I also know the turnover there is very high,and the next time you see one with a sleeper truck and 53' trailer trying to get into a busy convenience store parking lot and hand stack hand trucks and roll them into the store down ramps out of the truck you'll be saying to yourself " I'm glad that's not me" it's slave work.
I've done all types of food service work as a driver and owner operator from delivering liquor in straight jobs that I owned ,to delivering supermarket loads and hand unloading into inner city supermarkets in NYC and the 5 boroughs with my own tractors ,tough work that paid about $10 a mile some days,yeah sounds great ,but its combat pay.
The worst was Sysco. Granted I was in the NYC metro area and could have 15 stops in NYC with a trailer stacked to the roof and loaded wrong. Almost all stops are hand unload onto hand trucks as high as your head and 100's of heavy cases going up and down stairs ,having some dishwasher flunky tell you to put "this stuff down there and that stuff up there" trying to get you to do there work. Hard core no lunch time delivery ,and some restaurants won't let you in between 11am and 2 pm.
And just try and show up at dinner time . I went there as an experienced driver ,and they were so short handed they sent me out on my first day with no training and no orientation and I finished my run faster than most of their seasoned drivers. Management was made up of washed out ex drivers who knew it all but couldn't shine your shoes as a driver.Cry babies who got hurt ,or couldn't hack the work so they went into supervision.
Literally the worst job I had in 31 years. I stuck it out for 2 years before I quit and bought my own truck.
It literelly is a young mans game. I did it in my early 30's
And I was in good shape and it knocks the hell out you everyday. Many times I could not make it home after work
I was so tired I would sleep in my car or make it home and be too tired to get out of my car when I got home and fall asleep in my driveway too tired to get out of my car.
We were paid by the hour and pretty good for 1995
$18.25 an hour. I made $1100 to $1200 in 4 days with overtime. Only reason I stayed as long as I did. After a while between the work ,and the micro managing by clowns trying to look like heroes in management trying to
cut overtime without cutting the brutal work you had to do
I had enough. If Sysco paid $40 an hour it's not worth the work you have to do,never mind "by the case" that's ridiculous. If you need the money that bad, do it till you get yourself straightened out. Way easier ways to earn a good
living (local tanker hauling gas for example,got friends doing $80k to $90k doing that) and not work like a galley slave. I joke around with friends when I see a Sysco truck
And ask them do you know what Sysco means? They say no. I tell them it's Latin for "slave with a hand truck!"lol.
I'm not against hard work,and God Bless the drivers that work in food service because they need it.

 

Current Sysco driver here in Upstate New York. He quoted the job EXACTLY. Most of the guys I work with hate it, but the have so much debt they can't quit.