Ice delivery guideHow to plan ice delivery routes for summer peaks

Every ice distributor knows the feeling: a forecast of 95°F on Saturday, a holiday weekend, and a phone that won’t stop ringing on Friday afternoon. Summer is where an ice business makes its year — and where weak route planning costs the most, in empty merchandisers, overtime and drivers who finish at 9 p.m.

This guide walks through how to plan ice routes so the peak works for you instead of against you.

1. Forecast demand from the weather, not just the calendar

Ice demand follows temperature more than any other single factor. A plan built only on “last July” misses the week that runs ten degrees hotter than normal.

• Look at the 5–7 day forecast every morning during the season, and plan loads two days out.
• Know your heat thresholds. From your own sales history, find the temperature where demand clearly steps up. For many routes it is somewhere in the 80s; your history will tell you where yours is.
• Mark the big weekends early: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day, plus local events — festivals, fairs, big games — that empty convenience-store boxes.
• Use account history, not averages. A beach-road gas station and an inland grocery store react very differently to the same heat.

2. Plan sweeps by territory, then tighten them

Ice is a sweep business: drivers cover a territory across a cycle and fill each box with what it needs. That means the territory design matters more than the order of any single day.

• Balance territories by volume, not by stop count. Twenty high-volume stops can be a heavier day than forty small ones.
• Keep high-volume accounts on the most frequent cycle in peak season — some need a visit every day, or twice a day, on hot weekends.
• Plan on real roads. Straight-line distance hides bridges, one-way streets and summer traffic around beaches and parks.
• Leave slack for call-ins. On the hottest days, plan routes at 80–85% of a driver’s capacity so urgent calls can be slotted in without breaking the day.

3. Add trucks for the rush — and drop them after

Most ice businesses run far more trucks in July than in January. Plan the extra capacity before you need it:

• Decide in spring how many seasonal routes you will run, and which territories they split from.
• Train seasonal drivers on the route, not just the truck. A good driver app with stops in order and notes for each account shortens the learning curve.
• Make sure your software follows the season too. Paying for peak-season trucks all winter adds up; look for pricing where the truck count can go up and down with you.

4. Keep merchandisers full — and working

Your freezers in other people’s buildings are your shelf space. An empty or broken merchandiser on a hot Saturday is a lost sale you never see.

• Record what the driver puts in at every box. Bags filled is the best demand signal you have, account by account.
• Track every merchandiser — location, size, temperature issues and service history — so a failing unit is fixed before the peak, not during it.
• If you have merchandiser monitoring, use the alerts. A box running low or warm should reach the right route the same day.

5. Load the truck in stop order

On a peak day, minutes at each stop matter. Load so the first stop’s bags are at the door and the last stop’s are at the back. Count bags out at the dock and back in at the end of the day, so you know what was really delivered.

6. Bill at the box

When the driver fills the box, the bag count should become the invoice there and then — paid at the door or added to the account. Re-keying tickets at the office the next morning is where peak-season mistakes and slow payments come from.

7. Measure the season, then fix next year

After Labor Day, look back: which routes ran late most often, which accounts ran out, where were the avoidable miles? Those answers are next summer’s plan.