An ex-colleague of mine works for Ove Osterrgard.He lives in the UK and normally does trailer changeovers in Belgium.Now and then he does go to Denmark.
He works as a self-employed driver and whilst the money is very good,his weekend break normally starts on a Sunday afternoon/evening and then ships out again Tuesday morning.He has anything up to 14 drops all over the UK (but usually within the same area) and some places he has to unload by himself out of normal opening times.
They run legal,but during the run up to Easter and Mothers Day,they work a lot harder.
Apparently,there is one of the original Danish drivers living in the Essex area who now organises things over in the UK.
The kit is all well maintained and fairly new,and of course fitted with fridge and coffee machine the same as all Danish trucks.
Just to ad to what Keith has said you will have to go up to Odense to see Ove, he does not take on drivers over the phone, ever since an artice on his company in one of the truck mags he was inundated with calls from UK drivers, I also gather he has had a few UK drivers that started and didnt fit in (thats being polite) As Keith said the gear is top notch, it has to be. Also bear in mind that you are paid in DK so you would need to open a bank account in Denmark and if I recall while you are in Denmark you pay Danish tax, tho that may have changed. As you would be self employed, when you dont work you dont get paid, same as if you are ill etc, so yes the money is very good, but once you offset things like not getting paid when you are not working (if you are at home in UK with the truck and there is no work) then this comes down a bit. Also with flower transportation most times you are going to be tipping and loading the trailer, and belive me when you are at Gasa’s place confronted with a full load of pansys or whatever and you have to work it all out, it can be a bit daunting, as can the paperwork, of which there are complete trees of it, also all in Danish, one other thing, just because you are from the UK does not mean that you will go to UK as O.O. go all over europe.
I hope i havent put you off, just trying to let you know what you would be letting you self in for.
When I worked with Keith for the Swede, I was made redundent before him and went with our old colleague up to see Ove, it wasnt untill about 10 months later that i knew of a job that was going there, by which time I was doing Greece, and would much rather spend my time sitting for 19 odd hrs on a ferry in the sun than I would on the north sea.
Hope the above has been of some help
sdj
I 've got a mate in Copenhagen who knows some of the people at Ostergaard’s Odense HQ. He tells me that it’s a good firm, with top class kit but when there’s work to be done you gotta do it (no hanging around with a full load of flowers on board). I believe that O.O has got eight or nine trucks running from UK, with British drivers on them. Apparently the money is pretty good if you can work it so that you pay UK tax instead of the super-high Danish rate.
Keith (KW) has got a friend on there too - he’ll no doubt know more about what things are like there.
As for the other Danish firms, I see that several of them are registering their trucks in Lux to save money and getting cheap drivers to match so it’s becoming less easy to find a decent job up there now.