Sargento, the Plymouth, Wisconsin-based cheese company, has put its own truck drivers into a registered apprenticeship program — a private shipper sidestepping the same thin driver pool every carrier and broker in the Midwest is fishing in.

The program, reported by Spectrum News, lands at a moment when large Midwestern food manufacturers are running out of patience with the labor market. The American Trucking Associations still pegs the industry shortfall at roughly 80,000 drivers, and large-truckload turnover has held above 90% for most of the past decade. Sargento's bet: train the drivers you need before someone else hires them.

What does the apprenticeship actually do?

It puts Sargento's drivers — and outside trainees the company brings in — on a structured path to a Class A commercial driver's license. Paid on-the-job time and classroom instruction sit inside the schedule, not after it. Apprenticeship models like this have been standard in the building trades for decades. Trucking has lagged, mostly because the work is mobile and federal apprenticeship registration is paperwork-heavy.

For Sargento, the math is plain. Build the pipeline, keep the seats filled.

Why a cheese company is acting like a carrier

Most large Midwestern dairy and food manufacturers run private fleets. They get tighter pickup windows, tighter cold-chain control, and direct exposure to driver turnover. When the market tightens, a private fleet either pays up or watches empty miles multiply. Sargento is trying to pick a third option: stop buying drivers and start making them.

The Spectrum report doesn't detail fleet size, pay scales or apprentice headcount. Those are the numbers freight watchers will want next. But the strategic logic is familiar to anyone who has watched PepsiCo, Frito-Lay or Werner-owned fleets run their own training pipelines for years.

What does this change for shippers?

For Sargento's retail and foodservice customers, the practical effect is stability. A private fleet with a steady training pipeline is less likely to see loads slip during the worst weeks of the year — late summer produce and the November–December holiday peak, the two windows when spot rates spike and capacity evaporates.

For the broader market, the move adds one more data point to a pattern that has been building for two years. Large shippers, tired of watching spot rates bounce on the DAT board, are treating driver supply as something they have to solve themselves rather than buy.

The numbers that matter — and the ones Sargento hasn't shared

The macro is well known. ATA's shortage estimate sits near 80,000. Class A CDL issuance in Wisconsin has been choppy since 2020. Community college trucking programs in the state have absorbed most of the demand, with waiting lists that run months long in some districts.

What Sargento hasn't disclosed, and what will decide whether the program works, is retention. Apprenticeship completion rates in the building trades routinely hit 70–80%. Trucking programs, where the entry-tier pay is lower and the lifestyle is harder, have historically lagged. The two-year mark is the line that matters.

What to watch next

The first real test is whether Sargento can keep its graduates past year two. If it can, the model becomes a template for the dozens of Midwestern food and dairy shippers running private fleets of their own. If it cannot, the driver shortage will keep doing what it has done for a decade: extracting rent from everyone who needs a truck and doesn't own one.