Articles by Tom Kelley

With fuel prices seemingly anchored around $4 a gallon, most beverage fleets remain quite proactive about reducing fuel consumption.

As noted in last month’s article on the shift from straight trucks to tractor-trailer combinations, the bottler/distributor consolidation and SKU proliferation of the last decade have had an unprecedented impact on the beverage industry, and more specifically, on beverage fleet operations.

The first decade of the 21st century saw profound change in the beverage industry, with an exponential explosion of product SKUs taking place at the same time as unprecedented levels of bottler and distributor consolidation.

Each year in March, the trucking industry comes together in Louisville, Ky., for its single largest event, the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS). As the industry’s key event, it’s fairly common for the chief executive officers of exhibiting companies to report on recent performance and prognosticate about the year to come.

During the last several years of working with beverage fleet managers, few topics have shown a solid division between strategy and practice.

As diesel prices continue to hover near $4 a gallon, it’s more important than ever for fleets to get the most out of every last drop of fuel purchased at the lowest possible cost.

 Since nearly the dawn of the automotive age, many “alternative” fuels have been tried, but virtually all have come up lacking when compared with petroleum-based diesel and gasoline.