Delivering Beer

Hello I added some stuff on in this one,
Where do I begin, oh yes here are two links you may find helpful:
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/beer-trucking-in-pictures.304406/

and
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...rage-distribution-business-works-yawn.273887/

Both of those were written by me and I think they are some of my best work, not to toot my own horn of course.

I did it all bulk truck and side loader every picture that was taken was a picture of a truck that I drove, when working for the beer distributor. I eventually quit because well I just didn't like the job and two it wasn't why I got into this business it wasn't what I wanted to do, but I gained valuable experience and wouldn't have traded it for anything. I work for Gordon Food Service now which is 100xs better then beer and a much much much better company with good pay 30K more a year then beer and nice equipment with a lot of different opportunities that come up.

However if your son wants to do beer, well what I need to know is what kind of operation does the distributor run? Are they all side loader or are they brought into the 20th century and have a mixed fleet of bulk trucks and side loader trucks.

There are plenty of beer distributors that are still only rolling side loader which well, is fine until you have to go to a big grocery store then it's a real pain in the rear end. Trust me I know delivering beer sounds like all fun and games, bars and skantaly clad female bar tenders and all kinds of praise for being "the beer guy" no one ever goes "Oh good there's GFS with 500 pounds of french fries yeahh party hard!" I've never heard that from John Q Public. Although this new high school I got to gets these spicy potato wedge fries known as "tater babies" and I really want to try them, but I digress.

Now lets get down to brass tax of the beer business. It is a government regulated business that operates on the "three tier system" the legal name of this is the ABC system which is why you have the ABC State Liquor and Package Stores what this means is that a brewer licensed by the government is allowed to brew beer, that brewer then is able to sell that beer to a distributor licensed by the government of course who then has express written distribution rights to distribute that particular brand with blessings from the state and brewer of course in whatever counties they have blessings to deliver beer in by the state and the brewer of course. The distributor then is allowed to sell beer and deliver the beer to licensed retailers licensed by your friendly government of course. After all we don't want all that beer to get into the wrong hands? That's why it's imperative that the government keeps an eye on these things.

Any who, I really do need to see the name of the company he is working for the distributor I worked for was pretty big time and we had bulk and side load and actual OTR truck load to and night shuttle because we had 3-4 drop lots. Actually they asked me before I quit to work at GFS if I wanted out of delivery and onto night shuttle or truck load and truth be told, I would never work there again as a delivery driver, but I would work there again doing night shuttle or truck load I would do that, much.

However if he's working for small hole in the wall 1 or 2 county distributor then chances are there all side loader and well, that kind of stinks when you have to go to groceries stores. Remember all female bikini clad bar tenders I was talking about? Yeah that doesn't really exist. Instead what you get is sometimes some very nice people, but other times a bunch of grumpy grumps who rule the back loading dock at the grocery store the same way past historical figures have ruled other countries. Wally world is very good at ignoring beer truck drivers like there not even there, pretty much get treated sometimes like a sub-human.

Anyhow if it's side loader he could be loaded down with anywhere from 18-25 stops a day I don't think I ever did more then 25, but let me tell you 25 is a good amount. You will drive about a foot park the truck, get out start opening bays (if your on side loader) well and that's another topic for disscusion as well is the warehouse your son works out of an manual warehouse or automated using a vertique machine?
Here's what vertique is:


Anyhow that will depend on how the side loaders are loaded. If he works out of a warehouse where you have a bunch of shelves and guys running around on pallet jacks with head sets on what that means is the bays of the side loader will chances are be loaded by skew. Where I worked our warehouse was automated and our side loaders for the most part were loaded by customer which was great, because you just wrote down who was in what bay and you would get to Gabbys Market and you would look and see Gabby was in bay 2 on the drivers side and you would throw open bay two on the drivers side grab your wheeler and get moving.

Now here is the thing, doing beer you will be collecting a lot of money and depending on the company say you walk away from the truck and don't lock your bays and a couple cases go missing it's on you. Now every distributor is a tad different, because where I worked we were loaded by customer and the skids were shrink wrapped before going on the truck it would be hard for a case to just go missing from a skid that's fully shrink wrapped. However if your loaded by skew it's usually on you to count the beer before you leave the warehouse in the morning. Personally if you can go somewhere, where the trucks are loaded by customer and come off of an automated line you won't have to count anything before you leave the warehouse in the morning, all you want to do is make sure your stops are on the truck and you have all your kegs.

Anyhow you'll do 18-25 stops a day in a side loader it's a lot of get in the truck drive to the territory hit your first stop, make the delivery then get back into the truck drive it a total of 2 feet get out and make another delivery and you repeat that process about 25 times. When I worked for the beer company on Friday I literally had 4 stops where I never even moved the truck. It was all walking and running back and fourth the truck. Then drive half way around the block set the parking break and make another delivery. All in all the whole route may only be a few city blocks.

Lots of steps and steps with kegs. Lots of shady convenient stores that pass bad checks, because you the driver are also the bill collector and you have to collect money for 99% of the deliveries you do.

Personally as far as 2500-3000 cases a week, I have no way to verify that I suppose that depends on what beer your distributing, I worked for a Coors Light distributor and I was I figure 2300 cases a week it goes up and down.

Personally I do better now at GFS then at the beer company money wise. Like I said yeah it might all seem like female bikin clad bartenders, but they don't work at 9:00am on Tuesday morning when you'll be delivering.Now there was a girl who ran the bar at my last stop on Thursday her name was Avril she was 26-27 like me and she was an immigrant from Ireland and she was a real doll, and the guys who ran another bar out in Treemont that I went to they were pretty cool too I liked those guys they were good, now there were other bars and places that were not so cool, but 90% of the places were fine usually.

However the rest of it is angry grocery store receivers or shady C-Stores. Some C-Store owners are nice and others not so nice kind of depends you'll get jacked around by those guys a little bit. C-Stores trying to pass of counterfeit money or write you bad checks good times. Plus C- stores are owned generally by people from the middle east those places change ownership a lot over night sometimes. One week you'll go in there and Joe is running the place the next week you'll go in there and there's a new Joe running the place. One week Joe Sharifi is running the joint the next week Joe Faddy Chamone is running the joint it happens all the time and without warning. I don't know how these C-Store suppliers like Sledd from West Virginia keep it all straight and handle these people.

You'll have other A-holes too, there's a couple on my list I'm thinking of, and I would love to name some names, I but I wont.

I want to talk because I didn't talk about it bulk trucks. If your son is going to an operation that has joined the 21st century the trend in beverage distribution is to get away from side loaders it won't happen over night and some routes probably not at all, but the drop yard I worked out of at the beer company they eliminated oh gosh a few side loaders and replaced them 28' trailers and lift gates. Side loaders are old technology Coke, Pepsi and 7UP are all trying to do away with side loaders, the beer distributors some are also trying. 28ft lift gates are all the rage now they can cram more on and they are more efficient. It does however depend on the route obviously like where I ran a dense busy inner city almost down town route your not taking a 28ft trailer and lift gate down there because most of your stops will be nickle and dime.
However if your out in the country or in more open areas and you have a few bigger stops, you bet your bippy they could very well load you in a 28ft trailer or 36ft trailer it depends drop lots were usually 28ft warehouse usually 36ft, but it did depend obviously with a lift gate and you'll roll over to some bigger C-Stores or medium sized grocery stores or big drop drive through beverage stores and what you do is park and you can park the truck anywhere and you'll grab the pallet jack and your two wheeler (you'll have an electric power jack loaded on your trailer) you will drive the pallet to the front door of the store (one circle K in geauga county Ohio front door is big enough you can actually drive the whole pallet in the store I did it once.)

Anyhow you drive the pallet jack as close to the front door as you can and start loading up your wheeler and wheeling the stuff in. The distributors have found 28ft and 36ft trailer with lift gate and power jack is way more efficient then 20 bay side loader. In fact the company I worked for only had two 20 bay side loaders they did not like the 20 bay side loaders and preferred 28ft trailers over 20 bay side loaders actually they would rent straight trucks from Pensky for over flow and I swear they would rather rent straight trucks then use 20 bay side loader trailers. Like I said they only had two 20 bay side loaders. Now the thing about bulk truck was part of your pre trip was making sure your lift gate worked. Where I worked I know for a fact the bulk trailers that were used for delivery were defiantly bought used and the lift gates were also bought used and transplanted on. Every lift gate trailer was different. Now when I left that company they were starting to recondition some of there trailers. I've seen a lot of nicer equipment from them. Well actually while I was there they got new tractors they decided that it was time to up date the tractor fleet and a year or so it looks like they started to clean up the trailer fleet too, the trailer fleet they had both side loader and bulk was starting to get a little raggedy. I see there trucks out on the road and it does look like they have made strides to clean up the trailer fleet, which is good it was looking a little rough. The side loaders technically those things are all aluminum they rarely ever retire those, what they do is send them to the works and they have them reworked they get the doors fixed and they paint them and fix the breaks and stuff. That was another reason for the move to 28ft trailers and 38ft trailers. Side loaders have doors on them that need a lot of maintenance 28ft trailers and 36-38ft trailers while they might have a lift gate they don't have 20 doors on them that need maintenance and that a fork lift operator can hit and break and that happens a lot. So if he's at a place that's using bulk trucks he could be in a 28 ft trailer and his day might be like this:



One of my jobs that would be like a dream job of mine is like equipment fleet manager like buying equipment and finding the best piece of equipment to go on each route that would be a job I'd like to have.

Anyhow up here in the north the beer trucks made about $40,000 a year which is 30K a year less then Sysco, US or GFS. I hope I did a good job of explaining this whole thing.

 

I'm so glad I don't have to go into that place anymore!

By the way Mike, that long post was some of your best work to date.

 

I took 3200 cases of Coconut Water in there - 20 pallets, 16 to a layer, 10 high. I had to make them all 5 high, so I handled 1600 cases. I was sore for 3 days! Fortunately the entire day was time and a half, I picked up a backhaul on the way back and made some pretty good ching for the day.

Heinen's.

 

Where do you guys park or back into at Heinen's there's really not that much room over there and they seem to be pretty cramped never had to go to there warehouse. There stores are no bargain to deliver to either. I have delivered to a couple of there stores, don't really miss it.

 

Thanks hopefully that man in Florida reads that post and learns all about the beer business.

 

I was confused when I got there, but then realized that you actually PULL in to their building to back in to the docks. Then you pull out at the other end. It would probably be tight with a 53 and a big sleeper. I had a 53 and a daycab so it wasn't too bad.

 

So it's like Chef Ko at the Cleveland Food Terminal you pull into the building back into the dock and leave out the other end.

 

Here is a good one this guy appears to be out west.

 

Yep, exactly like Chef Ko. I delivered there, too, but was always in and out super fast. I wouldn't have minded Heinen's if I had been on the clock, but I always got held up there whether I paid for a lumper or broke the load down myself. That's why I don't miss it!