What’s happening: It’s hot, and that means a tidal wave of demand for hauling drinks to consumers, from water and tea to beer and soda.

By the numbers: Beverages are a $146 billion business in the U.S.

Tips for better shipping: Work with carriers with relationships on both the shipper and retailer sides. Get more flexible delivery through drop-trailer agreements. Aim for predictable service during surges through long-term carrier contracts. Use brokerage to complement asset-based partnerships.

The bottom line: When it comes to the seasonal beverage surge, a little bit of planning and a couple of season-specific strategies can keep the drinks flowing.

As temperatures rise, a big appetite for beverages can leave shippers sweating the details of getting a tidal wave of drinks hauled, delivered, and onto store shelves. A little bit of planning and a couple of season-specific strategies can keep that traffic flowing.

One smart way to stay ahead of thirsty shoppers is to work with a carrier that serves both beverage shippers and the retailers they supply, said Adam Veron, head of Enterprise Sales for U.S. Xpress.

“We share a lot of the same grocery and major retail customers that beverage shippers serve, so we have a fundamental understanding of how those retail customers work because we do business directly with them,” Adam said.

Having drop-trailer privileges with many customers means U.S. Xpress can roll in with an empty trailer and trade that empty for a loaded trailer already packed with pallets of thirst-quenching drinks. That means shippers can load up the empty trailers whenever they’re ready, and work with wide delivery windows.

“We may be able to schedule more flexible drop delivery appointments which helps everyone out,” Adam said. “That extra flexibility could make the difference in on-time delivery.”

Trucking has several predictable seasons, including produce season in the spring and the holiday shipping season as the year draws to a close. But in a pandemic-disrupted world where every day delivers new and bigger surprises, it’s hard to come by a sure thing.

“We’re in a time of radical unpredictability,” Adam said. 

But it’s easy to predict huge demand for drinks, as the U.S. beverage industry is worth about $146 billion, and the global market is valued at $1.5 trillion – yes, that’s trillion with a T.

Sales of beverages in the U.S. fell sharply in 2020 as folks hunkered down, but the numbers roared back in 2021, topping out far above 2019 demand.

As summer heats up and consumers get even thirstier, partnering with carriers that work with a wide variety of customers in multiple industries is another strategy for meeting demand surges. Those companies are well-positioned to surf waves of demand and to accommodate the often unexpected ebbs and flows of shipping.

“We operate in diverse verticals – consumer products, retail, meal and beverage, manufacturing, paper,” Adam said. “If one section in surging, there’s significant advantage in having a lot of diversity as far a customer base. That diversity provides reliability, predictability, and versatility.”

The advantages of asset-based services include fixed costs, which can be an essential factor to planning for traffic that tends to run through cycles of demand.

“Customers that could be impacted by seasonal swings can benefit from contracted capacity and having commitments established,” Adam said. “That’s a good way to secure reliable capacity even during a crunch like beverage season.”

But brokerage services can be an important complement to asset-based services in meeting demand for capacity during surges.

“We work with thousands of partners carriers in our brokerage area,” Adam said. “Brokerage has unique advantages, including providing rates based on fast-changing market conditions.”

The pandemic created huge demand for consumer and personal goods, and manufacturers had to get creative to move those goods on time despite supply chain challenges. For one U.S. Xpress shipper, a tight partnership that offers flexible options for moving goods better gets that job done.

“This client needed more capacity, and they allowed us to be as flexible and creative as possible,” said Merideth Lewis, vice president of sales for U.S. Xpress. “The nature of their business is recession-proof. People don’t stop buying household and personal products.”

This major manufacturer needed the predictability and scale of an asset-based carrier and the array of creative capacity solutions offered by our Xpress Technologies division. U.S Xpress brought all of those tools to the table, along with consistent connections to our Customer Experience and Sales Teams.

“There’s such value in the relationship – there was a mutual understanding that we were in this situation together, we’ve gotta figure this out,” Meredith said.

To meet growing demand for their products, this manufacturer opened a new distribution facility in the Southwest which grew their transportation network. They were moving more goods closer to customer destinations, which was great for getting products to shelves faster. Our team identified power-only services to meet the on-time delivery expectations.

In partnership with the Xpress Technologies brokerage group at U.S. Xpress, Merideth and her team identified opportunities to offer power-only services to the customer, which authorized other carriers to haul U.S. Xpress trailers loaded with their goods.

The relationship with this customer has been in place for years, but as the challenges in the consumer goods industry have evolved, the solutions U.S. Xpress offers have evolved along with them, Merideth said.

“They are team-minded and collaborative when they task us to fix a problem,” Merideth said. “That’s a good recipe for a partnership that keeps business moving.”

The drab days of winter are behind us, and soon your schedule will be filled with summer staples: picnics, bike rides, backyard games, the ritualistic Saturday morning lawn mowing, water sports, and yes, the requisite summer cookout.

All those parties, get-togethers, and home improvement projects combine to create an annual spring shipping surge in anticipation of summer. And this one is shaping up to be a doozy: The National Retail Federation is predicting near-record import levels heading into summer. Shippers are working overtime to make sure the shelves are stocked before consumers rush to clean them out.

The spring surge, like other seasonal demand cycles, puts a strain on the entire supply chain. Regardless of your role, we all feel the squeeze. Flexibility becomes the name of the game for shippers. Here are three time-tested strategies to help you navigate the strains of the season.

Pick off-time load and unload schedules

Sometimes being flexible is as simple as the old “be where they ain’t” strategy. Carriers have more demand than they can feasibly service, so temporarily shifting load and unload times to unconventional hours gives carriers a larger window to work with. If the typical working hours are filled, try offering load and unload times when carriers won’t be covered by fulfilling spring demand.

Use a daily load and unload plan to support your operation

How prepared are you for incoming trailers? Many professional drivers pull in to find shippers unprepared to receive their load, leaving them stranded and losing money. For drop-and-hook loads, is the empty trailer ready? Or will drivers need to spend hours chasing a trailer? Conversely, if you don’t have empty trailers available, have you communicated this to the carrier? Surprising a professional driver when they arrive can cause delays, making them to be late to their next load. Preparation and planning are strong buoys during demanding shipping seasons.  

Consider using brokerage to meet surge capacity needs

Modern brokerage is embracing new technology solutions that give shippers unparalleled extended capacity. All the freight acceptance, revenue management, and fleet management are in one place, creating a more transparent environment for both shippers and carriers. When you need capacity at a moment’s notice, brokerage is often a shipper’s best friend.

Conclusion

Like other demand cycles, we’re all affected — no link in the supply chain is left untouched. Shippers need their goods moved, and carriers are trying to service as many loads of those goods as possible. With a bit of flexibility, creative solutions like brokerage, and proper planning, we’ll all be relaxing around a fired-up grill in no time.

Autonomous trucks will be on the road sooner than you may expect, and they’ll be a key part of how goods are moved, expanding capacity, improving the lives of professional drivers, and creating new jobs.

Though autonomous trucks could hit the road as soon as 2023, we’re not replacing our professional drivers with robots — you can’t replicate the deep knowledge and judgement of highly skilled drivers. They’re the lifeblood of our industry.

So, how will autonomous trucks affect logistics? Partnerships like ours with Aurora, the latest of a group of agreements we have with autonomous developers, will change the industry for the better. Consider these three potential effects of putting autonomous trucks on the road.

Self-driving tech can dramatically expand capacity – Professional drivers follow strict hours of service requirements, but autonomous trucks won’t be bound by those constraints. We estimate that one self-driving truck will have twice the utilization as a human-operated truck, effectively doubling capacity. Tonnage is projected to grow by about 2.5% each year, which could mean we’ll need 4.2 million professional truck drivers on the road by 2030. Given the existing driver shortage and the need to add up to 1 million drivers in the next 10-15 years, autonomous trucks are a promising option to meet the country’s growing capacity needs.

Ultimately, autonomous trucks could improve drivers’ lives – This may sound counterintuitive, but self-driving trucks could take on less desirable routes drivers often avoid. They may be routes that keep professional drivers on the road for long periods of time, lack service centers or truck stops, or be far from home. These types of lanes can be handled by autonomous trucks, meaning professional drivers can be shifted to routes close to home on a more consistent and reliable schedule. Professional drivers will get more predictable hours and more time at home with their families, something we know they want and need.

Create new jobs – Autonomous vehicles require special tools and knowledge to maintain. We’ll need technicians, computer scientists, developers, and more to support this next generation of trucks. We’ll need managers and staff at autonomous-specific service centers. Amid fears that these trucks will reduce the need for employees, we anticipate the need for more logistics professionals.

“The future of trucking will involve innovative technology that these developers are creating, which is why we’re collaborating now to assure we’re first to market with autonomous trucks,” said Eric Fuller, President & CEO of U.S. Xpress. “Self-driving technology will afford us more solutions that we can pass on to our customers, all while benefitting our professional drivers. It’s a real win-win.”

The future of logistics is knocking at the door, and self-driving trucks stand to make our professional drivers happier, help combat supply chain stressors, and create new jobs. We know capacity will be expanded, and our customers will be able to ship more goods faster. What’s not to love? As we look ahead at the future of logistics, we’ll have more exciting announcements, and you’ll be the first to hear about them.