The problem isn’t where the truck is going, it’s what happens after it gets there.
Freight has always been one of those costs manufacturers notice most when it starts misbehaving. For years, many companies treated transportation as a largely predictable line item: negotiate a rate, build in a fuel surcharge and move the product. COVID-19 made that assumption harder to maintain. Now, due to the SofH debacle, diesel has surged, and driver and equipment availability is tightening on certain lanes. As a result, carriers are becoming more selective about where they are willing to send trucks. In packaging, paper and recycling, some mills are now offering freight allowances and asking suppliers to find their own transportation, a subtle but important sign that the problem is no longer just price. The economics of freight are becoming more complicated, and the cost of moving a load increasingly depends not only on how far the truck has to go, but where it ends up, what it can haul next and whether the trip makes any sense at all. To understand why freight has become such a headache for manufacturers, it helps to start with the most visible pressure: fuel.