In 1978, I started working for McCormick/All Portions Food Service. This facility produced individual portion pack products. You know what I’m talking about, like McDonalds Ketchup packets. The plants’ main customers were McDonalds, Arthur Treachers Fish and Chips, Gordon Food Service, and a host of smaller companies. They portion packed ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, taco sauce, honey, lemon juice, mayonaise, tartar sauce, seafood sauce, and all flavors of jams and jellies just to name a few.
My job for the first two years was to supply the plant with production materials locally supplied to the plant and to deliver the finished product state wide that ordered to be shipped. Now, the production plant members belonged to a printing union, and we 4 drivers were non-union, so that made things a little interesting back in 1978.
My main delivery customers were McMahon Foods in Noblesville and Sysco Food Service in downtown Indianapolis. I picked up raw production items at Midwest Cold Storage, Anderson Box Box Company, and other places I can not really remember. After all, it’s been 47 years.
I would haul finished product up to Gordon Food Service in Grand Rapids Michigan and drop down to our South Bend spice plant and pick up 55 gallon drums of mayonaise, salad dressings, mustard, and also 50 lb bags of seasonings.
In 1980, while I was still using the straight truck to make my pickups and deliveries, there was an emergency situation that arise with our number one customer, McDonalds. The plant imported their tomato paste from Mexico in 55-gallon drums and shipped them up to the plant by rail. Well, they got a railcar of tomato paste arrived and the dock crew unloaded it. Usually, it does not get processed and cooked into ketchup for about 2 weeks. After that shipment was processed and cooked and the ketchup packets were manufactured, the dock personnel put the pallets of finished product in the racks. No problems so far.
The orders came in for the ketchup to be shipped. I have no idea how many truckloads of this ketchup were shipped. I came to work on a Monday, maybe a month later, after the ketchup was processed shipped. McDonalds trucks were in the dock getting unloaded, which had never ever happened before. They always pick up, never deliver. I walked into the warehouse, there was a strange popping sound I heard in the warehouse as well as a funky smell to go along with it. That tomato paste had turned bad, and all that ketchup, hundreds of cartons were in the racks, and the packets were exploding.
To make a bad situation really bad, some of the finished products got out of the McDonalds warehouse and were shipped a McDonalds restaurant in Green Bay, Wisconsin. My assignment was to drive my Camero with 4 cases of McDonalds ketchup packets up to the restaurant in Green Bay Wisconsin from our plant in Indianapolis and exchange the good for the bad That was the first and last emergency situation I had to deal with while working at McCormick. They survived the problem and didn’t lose their number one account. McDonalds. Now to be clear, there were times when a customer would call the traffic manager and told them that they were running low on a certain product and ask to rush an emergency stock order to refill their stock, this happened a lot and to a lot of different customers.
It really kept me busy because I was the only driver local available to do these runs. All the road drivers were usually out of state. I’d say maybe once a month this would happen.
How I got into driving a semi tractor and trailer, Mr. Eldridge sent me out for 2 weeks with each of our road drivers. Their names were Dick Whyde, Rick Horner, and Matt Christian. Those 3 drivers taught me the basics of what the new drivers of today spend thousands of dollars to attend semi truck drivers training schools. The one thing they drilled into my head over and over again was, it’s all common sense, and when you’re backing up, if in doubt, then get out and look idiot. Backing up a semi tractor trailer is the most common maneuver where accidents occur. When backing up the scenery behind you can change in an instant as you’re watching your mirrors from one side to another. Trust me, I know, and that’s the one thing you can not control, which is other people’s actions. The pay at McCormicks was not too bad. Starting pay for me on the straight truck was $6.50 an hour, and after 90 days, it went to $7.50. I worked my way up to $12.00 and an hour over the course of the 4 year period when I worked local. Unfortunately, I can not remember the cent per mile that the over the road paid. My over the road loads went to places like Grand Rapids, Chicago, Minneapolis and St Paul Minnesota Stoughton Wisconsin Hunt Valley, Maryland , Smyrna Georgia. Going into my second year at McCormick, our plant decided to move the straight truck from the Indianapolis plant to our plant on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas. I was dispatched to drive it down to the Texas plant and fly back home to Indiana. The straight truck was empty when I drove it down, and the plant manager there was a guy named Gene Beltz. Mr. Beltz trained under the Indianapolis supervision, and I knew him pretty well. When I got back to the Indy plant, there was a new day cab International tractor that I was assigned to drive, which I did until my driving days were over at McCormick.
I got along very well with the personnel at McCormick, both hourly and salary. I bowled on bowling leagues all 4 years with the employees there, and the team was a mix of hourly and salary employees. After 2 years into my time at McCormick, Danny Eldridge got a well-deserved promotion up the chain and was moved to the Smyrna facility. I can not remember what his new title was, but that’s no surprise.
My new traffic managers name was Mike Wilson. Mike was not really keen to the idea of company trucks and company drivers, but over time, he did his job, and we did ours. Right about the 4th year mark of my time with McCormick the corporation decided that it just was not feasible to keep the company trucks due to the expense of leasing the trucks and trailers and paying the competitive wages to keep us drivers happy so in 1982 they terminated the leases and we were laid off with a sizable severance package to help us transition into our next career move. So, I ended my time at McCormick. It was extremely rewarding and a very positive period in my career. Now onward to my best employer, Overnite Transportation Company.
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