Flying groceries and supply chain complications

Rise and grind, hustle fam. It appears

Rise and grind, hustle fam. It appears Sam Cooke was right in his song A Change is Gonna Come, in fact, the change is here! Isn't it wild how technological advancements are revolutionizing the logistics industry, while simultaneously causing us stress? 😵‍💫

The gist of today’s latest news:

🛫 Walmart will start offering drone delivery within a 6-mile radius in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by the end of this year

🚚 Convoy is exploring strategic options to recover from declining volumes and rates that has negatively impacted the entire trucking industry

🌾 A four-year low in grain traffic across all Class 1 railroads in the US

💨 US wind sector catches momentum while overly ambitious plans for wind energy increases costs and supply chain complications

LOGISTICS

Wing and Walmart have teamed up to drop food on your roof! Just kidding. No, but seriously, Wing and Walmart are making big plans to offer food deliveries via drones starting at the end of this year from two stores in Dallas-Fort Worth!

They said the expected delivery time will be 30 minutes and it will transport household essentials and groceries to customers within a 6-mile radius. The first Walmart that gets to experience the launch will be a Walmart Supercenter in Frisco, TX.

“This is an exciting next step for our customers, as it provides even more access to a convenient, innovative and - most importantly - super speedy way to get the items they need.”

— Prathibha Rajashekhar, Walmart U.S. SVP of innovation and automation

BUSINESS

The leading digital Freight Network, Convoy hires Goldman Sachs, an investment management firm, to help it explore strategic options that could include a sale or merger of the company.

Currently, Convoy’s options look like:

💰Large capital investment from a financial sponsor

🧠 Sell to a large strategic buyer

🤝 A potential merger

In April 2022 Convoy was last valued at $3.8 billion. Since then, the US truckload market has seen a significant downturn in both volume and rate, while excess capacity persisted longer than expected. Putting a huge burden on freight brokers who usually sell their logistics services to shippers on a contract rate basis and buy trucking capacity on the spot market.

RAILROAD

Despite Texas’ large rail supply, its grain port lineup is experiencing a slow volume of business exiting the Texas Gulf. The primary grains that are exported from Texas are sorghum and wheat — and it’s not a lot.

On the other hand, soybean exports are still at the top of their game, as China remains its main buyer, and while wheat and corn exports have been failing to meet expectations, railroads are offering huge discounts to take grain West and motivate demand.

This shows the railroad's hard efforts to get movement going West and utilizing their trains.

ENERGY

While progress in the wind energy sector is picking up speed, it seems like the repercussions of ambitious energy plans are also picking up speed.

This summer, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has secured 356,550 acres of new offshore wind energy areas off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

On top of that, equipment manufacturers that are producing turbines for offshore and onshore wind projects have shown signs of a turnaround in their latest earnings reports. Although they are still burdened by inflation and costly supply chain disruptions.

So as you can see, the pressure is still on as the Biden administration pursues a goal of getting 20% of US electricity generated onshore and offshore wind, by 2030. Which includes building 30 gigawatts.

WEEKLY RECAP

On episode 196 on the Truck N’ Hustle podcast we had the pleasure of speaking with Tamela Colson. With almost two decades' worth of experience as a USPS Carrier, she gives us game on how she grew and secured her Courier Service to making $20 million per year.

⬆️ Watch the video above for more details! ⬆️

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

—Malcom Forbes