Mike's Book Club: JB Hunt The Long Haul to Success

Yes Werner is certainly possible were going to do both, but I think Werner is going to be next seems everyone wants Werner I have the book on my Coffee table, so it's ready to go. I think this week will get this J.B. Hunt story wrapped up. We've got 2 chapters left. I read 2 chapters today and I need to post all that, but I'll maybe get that done tomorrow. It's back to work tomorrow and I was being lazy this morning sooo, that's how that goes.

 

So because this thread got into trucking culture in the golden years I decided to do some research. Because I wanted to know who actually was C.W. McCall?

Well it turns out I now know the story of who he actually is.

 

C.W. McCall was actually a man named William Dale Fries. JR. He's actually still alive which floored me I thought he would have passed, on by now, but he is still very much alive he's 89 and lives in Colorado. He has a P.O. Box and if you want to write him a letter you can. I guess he loves getting mail. I almost thought about writing him one just to say hello, I think I may why not?

Anyhow, Mr. Fries, actually worked at an advertising agency in Nebraska and created the character C.W.McCall for the Metz Baking company.

Remember a couple thread's up when I said that the birth of modern food distribution that we know of today really didn't happen until the late 1970s through early 1990s. Well I wasn't totally wrong. But yes there were food distributors distributing to restaurants that existed long before the 1990s. But remember the market wasn't as big.

You didn't have food distributors who had mega truck fleets that rival the size of freight companies. The company I work for, and were just a super regional company we only really cover half of the US basically we do everything east of the Mississippi and Texas we do the entire state of Texas, but other then that were east of the Mississippi so were a super regional we've got over 2000 power units. In 1970 my company that I work for probably didn't even have 200 power units if they had 50 power units and they probably didn't even have that many it would have been a lot.

You never saw pictures or film or anything about food service work from that era. Really the conception of the whole thing when it really started to grow was when Sysco came on the scene in the mid 1970s.

However, fast food was becoming a thing and obviously that was the birth of customized food service distribution. It's funny because Bill Fries a.k.a C.W. McCall was an ad man and he created a series of TV Commercials for Metz Baking Company a.k.a Kern's and Old Home which as we've also talked about and the same thing happened to restaurants in the 1970s when stuff started getting big, fast food restaurants started getting big and so did there supply chains.

However I found this wonderful channel on You Tube this weekend because I'm an industry junkie and it's so funny cleaning out my grandparents house this weekend I found a research paper I wrote 14 years ago about Ford Motor Company and I went wow, I've been writing about industry for 14 years now. Anyhow, I found this You Tube Chanel called restaurant rewind the guy who does it only has 3 video's his name is Troy and he lives in the Chicagoland area, and he makes these fabulous You Tube Video's about restaurant chains and why some have made it why some didn't. He's only got 3 video's and actually I left him a comment and he said he's going to make more video's see what I do here this guy does on You Tube. Anyhow I was watching his videos and the one thing I noticed was during the 1970s there was a lot of consolidation. Like @Cardfan89 said the food companies deliveried all kinds of odd ball stuff to places. But 1970s came along and stuff changed. This big companies like Sara Lee and General Foods and Pepsi Co started getting into the baking and restaurant industry. General Foods bought out Burger Chef and Pepsi Co as you all know Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell.

You also had consolidation in the baking industry. Metz owned Kern's which was a Knoxville,TN bakery and another brand also known as Old Home.

Metz was bought out by Sara Lee. Sara Lee and Kraft bought out a lot of major food distributors and bakeries.

You had these packaged food manufacturing companies getting into the baking and restaurant business. Now granted that's all come full circle as Kraft, Sara Lee and Pepsi Co have all gotten out of the restaurant or broad line food business. Well Sara Lee is still in the baking business that'll probably never change, but I know Kraft and Sara Lee have gotten out of broadline food service. I know these big companies decided restaurants while profitable took a lot of money and energy and infrastructure to keep up and it wasn't that it wasn't worth it to them, but they found different easier ways and got out of the restaurant business.


However Fries made up a character by the name of C.W. McCall who was a bread truck driver for Old Home which was a brand made by Metz backing. Also Kern's Baking of Knoxville, TN. They were making a series of TV commercials for the bakery.




This was the building where Kern's bread was made don't worry all that good industry is gone now.


Sara Lee owns Kerns, but Fries made this set of TV commercials for Metz Baking now Sara Lee


and a lot of the commercials take place at the Old Home and Filler Up and Keep Her Trucking Cafe. Well that was Old Home and Filler Her Up and Keep Her Trucking Cafe was a song on C.W. McCall's album Wolf Creek Pass. Mavis Davis was the name of the Waitress in the TV commercials.

Anyhow these are the first time you really seen anyone from that era actually delivering food to a restaurant. Usually at the end of the commercial you see A.J. or C.W. dropping off some bread at the truck stop:


So I thought that was all pretty cool how they all tie together.