Green Schemes Thaw Trucking

Grocery chains seeking greater control over inbound inventory and manufacturers pursuing more sustainable shipping are making business hotter for refrigerated freight haulers.

Trucking companies that haul temperature-sensitive freight, especially food products, may be more recession-proof than companies that carry consumer dry goods. But increased interest in retail inventory management and environmentally sensitive shipping practices are placing new demands on refrigerated fleet operators. In many cases, it’s a question of shipping more freight with fewer trucks, as shippers and retailers look to save money and cut carbon emissions.

Kraft Foods, for example, cut more than 50 million truck miles from its global supply chain over the past four years by shifting freight from highway trailers to barges, boats and railcars.

“We think about miles, piles and idles when moving our product,” said Steve Yucknut, vice president of sustainability at the $42 billion food products company. “We’re finding ways to drive fewer miles, reduce inventory piles and eliminate idling trucks.”

Food companies are on the front lines of the sustainability movement. Increasingly, consumers want foods with a lighter environmental footprint, which is why 85 percent of food companies either increased or maintained sustainability investments during the recession, according to research firm IGD.

Green initiatives often translate into transportation savings, as shippers pare back distribution networks to increase efficiency. That can put pressure on refrigerated carriers, said Raymond Greer, president of Greatwide Logistics, Dallas, the largest refrigerated food hauler in the dedicated contract carriage business.

“We’ve seen the goods retailers stock in stores reduced a great deal,” Greer said. “They’re holding less in the store and more in warehouses, and that creates a bubble in the supply chain.”

Shippers are increasing total pallets per shipment to get better utilization and lower costs, he said. “That’s putting more pressure on the back dock, but it’s also rippling out through the transportation sector,” Greer said. “It has a net impact on the total load counts that carriers have available to them.”

Changing shipping patterns, coupled with the recession, have reduced volumes for refrigerated carriers anywhere from 3 to 15 percent, he said, depending on the markets they serve.