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military installations. These sales, direct retail and wholesale, may
be made from the processing plant or from distribution branches. A
third method of distribution is selling to independent distributors,
either at the plant (platform sales) or delivered to the distributor's
own cold storage and distribution facility. Many dairy processors
employ all three, concentrating in varying degrees on each distribu-
tion channel. Most small producer-distributors sell all their products
from a single retail dairy store located on the farm or a single retail
delivery route operated in a small town.

 The greatest volume of sales of the majority of dairy firms is
from retail distribution, based on a simple average of sales by various
distribution methods (Table 25). Weighting percent of sales through
each distribution channel with volumes handled indicated, however, that
a larger physical volume of milk products was moved by wholesale sales
than by any other method of distribution from processing plants. The
large firms tend to sell most of their volume through wholesale outlets.
Data were not obtained to show relative volumes sold to each type of
wholesale outlet. Dairy processing firms distributing their products
thus require any one or a combination of the following marketing
facilities: retail stores, retail or wholesale delivery trucks and
branch distribution facilities. Information provided by Florida
dairy firms showed only one case where all products processed were
distributed by an independent agent who received all products at the
loading platform of the dairy processor.

 The measurement or relative efficiency in utilization of milk
distribution facilities, chiefly retail and wholesale delivery vehicles,
was more complex than was true of processing plants. Even for retail
or wholesale trucks of the same carrying (load) capacity, many variables
of differing relative importance complicated most attempts to measure
efficient use of equipment.

 The data obtained included the number of retail and wholesale
delivery routes operated by each firm (Table 26). The 54 firms operat-
ing 1,196 retail routes had average daily sales of 87 gallons of fluid
milk per retail route. In the Northeast, Central, Tampa Bay and South-
east markets, the range was from 76 to 82 gallons daily. In the North-
west area, retail sales averaged 118 gallons per day. The 37 firms
distributing fluid milk to wholesale outlets operated 453 routes.
Average daily fluid milk sales were considerably higher on wholesale
than on retail routes. In four markets,volume ranged from 268 to 286
gallons offluidmilk sold per day. In the Southeast area, sales
averaged 311 gallons per day. Although it was not possible to determine
if any relationship existed between size of firm and distribution effi-
ciency, the data indicated that relatively small differences existed
between most markets in Florida in average daily sales on milk distri-
bution routes.