Hubby interviewed with one of these companies, many moons ago. Schwann's was the name of it, I think? The interview lasted an entire day, starting with the early morning rah rah meeting to get the sales force hyped up, before loading their trucks and running around in their territories.
The meat is on consignment, so if the meat is damaged, lost or stolen, the worker pays the company.
The company frowns upon workers who bring back a truck w/any meat left in it, so workers were known to pull 12 hour shifts in order to unload everything in the truck. Because who doesn't want to ring the bell of someone's house at 9 PM, trying to sell that last package of meat?
The "manager" also ran routes, except that these hyper crazy individuals would run multiple routes in multiple areas of the state, and often slept in the cabs of the truck in order to make more money!
They were really surprised that at the end of the day, hubby turned down the offer. And no, we have never purchased meat in this fashion, nor would we.