When you crack open a cold beer, you probably don’t think about the intricate, time-sensitive supply chain that got it into your hand. But for brewers, distributors, and retailers, that behind-the-scenes journey is everything. It determines whether products arrive fresh, on time, and at a cost that works, even in today’s inflationary market.
When the market becomes more inflationary and base transportation rates climb, every underutilized trailer and unnecessary mile becomes more expensive, widening the gap between efficient and inefficient freight strategies. Not every shipment fits into a traditional less-than-truckload (LTL) or full truckload (TL) strategy, leaving shippers searching for better solutions.
Enter Stone Brewing and their partnership with Flock Freight, which offers a fresh playbook. By blending Shared Truckload (STL), multi-stop truckload, and traditional TL, they’ve built a more resilient, cost-effective, and sustainable freight model. While Stone’s story starts with beer, the lessons apply across the food and beverage industry.
Why Food and Beverage Shippers Need a New Strategy
For food and beverage manufacturers, shipping rarely fits neatly into full truckloads. Order sizes fluctuate with promotions, seasonal demand, and retailer resets, leaving shippers stuck between two imperfect options:
- LTL: These add extra handling and delays as freight moves through hub-and-spoke systems. It’s risky for time-sensitive, damage-prone products like beverages and perishables. Diminishing LTL cut offs also lead to overage fees for larger shipments.
- Underutilized truckloads: Shippers pay for an entire trailer, even when it’s half-empty, eroding margins in an already tight budget environment.
Both options come with trade-offs: higher costs, greater risk of damage, and potential hits to retailer relationships.
This is where Shared Truckload (STL) shines. STL combines compatible freight from multiple shippers moving along similar routes into a single truck. Each shipper pays only for the space they use, while their freight moves in a truckload environment—loaded once, traveling directly, and delivered with truckload-level control over appointments and handling.
Because STL aligns cost directly with the space used on the trailer, its relative savings typically increase as inflation pushes rates higher, helping shippers avoid overpaying for “air” when markets tighten.
How Stone Brewing Blends STL Into Its Strategy
Stone Brewing, owned by Sapporo Brewing, faced challenges familiar to many beverage brands:
- Shipments that didn’t fit neatly into LTL or TL
- A network of distributors and retailers with strict appointment requirements
- Pressure to manage costs without compromising service
Instead of absorbing higher costs or accepting service trade-offs, Stone partnered with Flock Freight to integrate STL into their transportation mix. The result? A flexible, blended strategy that adapts to shipment size, lane patterns, and lead times.
Here’s how it works:
- STL for mid-sized shipments and irregular lanes: When volumes don’t justify a full truck and LTL adds too much risk, STL becomes the go-to.
- Multi-stop truckload for sequential deliveries: Efficient milk-runs across distributors or retailers keep costs down while maintaining truckload-level control.
- Single-stop truckload for large, direct moves: High-volume orders or repeatable lanes still move as traditional TL for simplicity.
Flock Freight’s technology evaluates each shipment in real time, recommending the best mode based on volume, lane density, appointment constraints, and distributor requirements. This dynamic approach allows Stone to treat mode selection as a strategic tool, not a rigid rulebook.
The Results: Savings, Stability, and Sustainability
What does this strategy deliver in practice? For Stone Brewing, the impact has been significant:
- 23% reduction in underutilized truckload costs in the first year, easing inflationary pressures.
- 99% on-time pickup and 97% on-time delivery, meeting the high expectations of distributors and retailers.
- 195 metric tons of CO₂e eliminated, thanks to better trailer utilization and fewer empty miles.
Across the food and beverage sector, shippers adopting STL with Flock Freight report similar results: 23% average cost savings and a 99.8% damage-free performance rate. For beverage brands, where scuffed labels or dented cans can mean instant write-offs, these damage reductions directly improve margins and retailer relationships.
Lessons for Food and Beverage Shippers
Stone Brewing’s success offers practical takeaways for any food or beverage shipper:
- Think beyond “LTL vs. TL.” Treat mode selection as a portfolio decision. STL and multi-stop TL can bridge the gap for mid-sized freight, offering truckload-level service without the cost of underutilized trailers.
- Let data guide your decisions. The best programs deploy STL where it makes sense—based on shipment size, lane patterns, and service requirements. Real-time visibility and data-driven recommendations are key.
- Use STL as a buffer against inflation. As transportation and fuel costs rise, paying only for the space you actually use helps protect margins and keeps landed costs more predictable.
- Prioritize retailer and distributor relationships.
On-time performance and damage-free delivery are non-negotiable. Build your strategy around protecting these KPIs, then optimize cost and sustainability.
- Leverage shared capacity for sustainability.
Consolidating freight reduces empty miles and emissions. Stone’s STL strategy eliminated 195 metric tons of CO₂e in a single year, proving that cost savings and environmental goals can go hand in hand.
From Beer to the Broader Food and Beverage Aisle
In today’s inflationary market, transportation teams are being asked to do more with less. STL and multi-stop TL provide the tools to balance cost, service, and sustainability.
While Stone Brewing’s story starts in the beer aisle, the challenges they faced are universal across food and beverage:
- Orders that don’t fit neatly into LTL or TL
- High sensitivity to on-time performance and handling
- Products vulnerable to damage from excessive handling or indirect routes
- Networks shaped by seasonality, promotions, and retailer demands
By adding STL and multi-stop TL to the mix, shippers can turn “freight that never quite fits” into an opportunity: a way to cut costs, stabilize service, and reduce environmental impact. That same flexibility also builds resilience against inflationary swings in the transportation market, giving shippers more control over costs when prices are moving in the wrong direction.
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