Your business just landed a new account — a regional grocery chain with 12 locations within 45 minutes of your facility. Great news. Then the question: do you add these stops to your existing delivery routes, or do you ship through a third-party carrier?
What Route Delivery (DSD) Actually Involves
Route delivery means your own trucks, your own drivers, delivering directly to customer locations on defined routes. For wholesale bakeries, confectionery, dairy, and other perishable food manufacturers, route delivery is often the default because the product requires it.
DSD isn’t just delivery — it’s a customer relationship channel. Your driver sees the shelf, talks to the store manager, handles returns, and represents your brand.
What Third-Party Shipping Involves
Third-party shipping means handing product to a carrier. This works for shelf-stable products, customers outside your delivery radius, and bulk orders going to distribution centres.
The appeal: no trucks, no drivers, no routes. You pay per shipment and the cost scales linearly.
The Real Cost Comparison
- Route delivery costs are front-loaded. Trucks, fuel, drivers — regardless of stop count. Adding a stop costs almost nothing incrementally.
- Third-party costs scale per shipment. No upfront investment, but no economy of density either. 5 pallets to 5 nearby stores costs 5x a single shipment.
- Hidden costs in DSD. Driver callbacks, vehicle downtime, accident risk, management overhead.
- Hidden costs in third-party. Damage rates, claim resolution, missed delivery windows, inability to handle returns.
When Route Delivery Makes Sense
When your customers are geographically concentrated, your product is perishable, you need to manage shelf presence, and the relationship at the store level matters.
When Third-Party Makes Sense
When customers are geographically dispersed, product is shelf-stable, volume per customer is high enough for efficient palletised shipping, and you don’t need at-store service.
The Hybrid Approach
Many food manufacturers use both. Routes for dense, local, perishable delivery. Third-party for distant, shelf-stable, or high-volume accounts.
How FlexiBake Helps
FlexiBake’s route management and DSD driver app handle route planning, load sequencing, proof of delivery, and return tracking. Routes connect directly to orders and invoicing.