Cargill’s announcement last week that it is making a nearly half-billion dollar investment in soybeans caught my attention because it suggests that one of the world’s largest food producers believes that soybeans are poised for sustainable growth and the recent price appreciation and surge in production are not just the result of transient trends. It’s […]
Brands big and small want more control over the customer experience, including data and service, and technology firms and logistics providers can now offer brands an Amazon alternative. The tension between retailers and brands is nothing new, but the battle between them has never been this acute thanks to the likes of Shopify, ShipBob, XPO and others.
Truck Talk is a weekly newsletter where FreightWaves adds context, commentary and color to industry news and trends.
Retailers are stuck between playing the waiting game and risking delays that wreck quarterly results or ponying up and taking to the skies. The goods will arrive quickly, but at what cost?
The effort to stop the COVID-19 pandemic is generating a lot of waste. Now, health care providers have to dispose of those materials.
Earlier this week, in the last edition of The Stockout CPG-focused newsletter, I focused on reefer since the many CPG companies that require temperature controls are facing an even tighter freight market than those that do not. Today, I am shifting gears to discuss shipping dry goods and, specifically, intermodal insights from the latest datasets […]
By some accounts, Instacart owns 50% of the online grocery market. With an IPO upcoming, I wanted to look back at how Instacart has gone from niche to necessity and question whether it can maintain this dominant position in a highly competitive, highly sought-after market post-COVID.
Companies in a wide variety of industries are starting to offer vaccines to their employees at work. That protects employees’ health and the company’s bottom line.
Just as Pat Riley trademarked the term “three-peat,” I’m considering trademarking “coin flip compliance.” That’s the state of the reefer market today with reefer carriers rejecting 50.3% of tendered loads, up from 40% in early February and up from 10% at this time last year. So, as concerning as tight transportation markets are for shippers […]
This article was originally published in The Stockout newsletter on February 3, 2021. To sign up for The Stockout newsletter, click here. We recommend that CPG companies, and others that ship refrigerated goods, pay close attention to Marten Transportation’s results each quarter. Marten, which reported its fourth quarter last week, is listed seventh on the […]
There are a couple of trends shaking up the automotive industry in the years ahead. Outside of digitization and electrification, one trend often gets left out: the growing reliance on Mexico and cross-border trade. As OEMs relocate manufacturing down in the South, suppliers are starting to follow in their footsteps.
One financial metric in the CPG world that stands out to me is AB InBev’s net debt-to-EBITDA ratio: 4.8x. The company has been highly leveraged since its acquisition of SABMiller in 2016 when its debt topped $100 billion (net debt was $82.7 billion at the end of 2020) and the pandemic hurt the company’s profitability […]
Truck Talk is a weekly newsletter where FreightWaves adds context, commentary and color to industry news and trends.
The United States’ infrastructure was put to the test recently when Winter Storm Uri passed through the lower half of the country. As a result, production at petrochemical plants shut down and the industry is now on the brink of a potential seat shortage.
This week, President Biden announced we will have enough vaccinations for every American by the end of May. For the American people, this is fantastic news. For apparel retailers, it’s euphoric news that complicates an already extremely uncertain environment. In this edition of Point of Sale, we’ll take a look at apparel inventory management through the lens of Nordstrom’s recent woes.
The FDA failed to conduct 1,000 inspections last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That backlog could clog the pharmaceutical supply chain.
In today’s edition, we highlight a Department of Labor move, a logistics executives survey and another acquisition for PS Logistics.
In today’s edition, we highlight a B2B exception in California, a dispute with the NTSB and good news for some newly hired drivers.
The recent stimulus bill would funnel billions to the health care supply chain quickly. Recent executive orders indicate the feds aim to focus on health care supply chain long term.
At this point, the vaccine has rolled out to nearly 24.8 million Americans and counting. The vaccination story is just getting started for the automotive industry, with Stellantis becoming the first automaker to administer vaccines to its workforce.
