Packed Out-The Birth of Modern Day Broadline Food Service Distribution

It would be interesting to go out on a food service route in the 1950s or early 1960s I would like to see how many stops the truck did, how the trailer was loaded, what kinds of products they were dropping off and what kind of stops they were doing. They weren't loading 48' trailer after 48' trailer 100 trailers a day to every Red Lobster and Del-Taco with in a 500 mile radius of the warehouse. Those chains didn't exist yet, but it would be interesting to see where they went and how the trailers were loaded and how it all worked.

I think a lot of what they did was and they used this word a lot, but don't use it so much anymore but the word "institutional" I think that was a big part of that business in those years it was more centered around institutions not so much fast casual or sit down restaurants like today. It was more of the State Prison, The State Mental Hospital, The Local Hospital, the orphanage, the public school and the big hotel in the center of town and the manor care center for the elderly and then the few lunch counters and hot dog stands that were around were just icing on the cake.

Now a days it's totally opposite it's all focused around independent food service operators and chain restaurants and the institutions they are still a main focus, but they are not the main focus, the restaurants are the bigger money makers. The institutions though are high volume. With restaurants you can do 40cases and have a $3000 bill with public schools you can do 140 cases and barely get a $2500 bill that's kind of the difference.

 

Were you a shuttle driver or route driver or both?

 

December 1 2001 US Food Service buys out Alliant Foods for $2.2 billion dollars.

 

There's still not as much anymore, but I think there are still a couple Alliant trailers stuffed away in the back corners of some of the US Foods Distribution Centers. US Food Service of the late 1990s and early 2000s was very very slow at relettering and remarking equipment. Once they became US Foods which was due to an owner ship change they seemed to rebrand awful quick.

 

I pulled this off the wikipedia page for US Foods kind of interesting:
"In 1965, Americans spent just 20 cents of every food dollar for food away from home. Total distributor sales that year were an estimated $9 billion, and the average institutional distributor had an annual volume of $1.5-$2 billion."

 

Our US Foods has a lot of Penske stickers on there trucks and trailers too, however they seem to be getting new equipment in.

 

I think there's a lot of ghosts of the past that still haunt US Foods.