Costs of Delivering Groceries and Frozen Foods to Restaurants in Combined or Separate Loads

Excerpt from the report Preface: One out of every three meals is eaten away from home in the United States. This amounts to $40 billion or 29 percent of the $138 billion spent for food in 1973. In the next 10 years institutional feeding is expected to double and two out of three meals will be eaten away from home. Faced with rising costs, the institutional wholesalers supplying food service operators are constantly seeking ways of increasing efficiency in their distribution operations. This study was conducted to assist these distributors to pinpoint delivery costs by determining the relative costs of shipping combined loads of groceries and frozen foods on dual-purpose delivery vehicles with the costs of using single-purpose vehicles and separate deliveries. Determination of these costs can guide the distributor in selecting delivery equipment and in adopting methods of operation that produce lower overall costs.