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This story first appeared in The Long Haul 2025, an annual special section that celebrates National Truck Driver Appreciation Week by looking at Eastern Iowa’s trucking industry.

CASCADE – Hunter Bergfeld was 2 years old when his parents, Randy and Wendy, gave up their milking operation and bought a milk transport route in 1997. They started R&W Transport in Cascade with two trucks and picked up milk from 20-25 farms, hauling about 90,000 to 100,000 pounds of milk a day.

Now 30 and the company’s chief operating officer, Bergfeld has six trucks picking up milk from 70 farms, hauling an estimated 800,000 pounds of milk every day.

That’s a lot of milk.

“We shoot for three loads of milk (to the

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