How a food manufacturer converted 1,300 truckload shipments to intermodal and saved $1.2M in nine months with Uber Freight
Company snapshot
Profile
Industry: Food & Beverage Manufacturing
Size: 5,000–10,000 employees
Location: Walnut Creek, CA
Overview
One of the largest producers, distributors, and marketers of branded packaged foods in the U.S. retail market.
Opportunity: A 20-year partnership finds new possibilities
For the last two decades, Uber Freight has worked closely with one of CPG’s largest producers, distributors, and manufacturers of branded packaged foods. The partnership has evolved from basic transportation management and control tower visibility to truckload and LTL capacity services, and eventually to port drayage for import containers.
The CPG industry has been under sustained margin pressure for several years, caught between rising logistics costs on one side, and increasingly price-sensitive consumers on the other. In 2024, it came time for Uber Freight to help the manufacturer identify cost savings opportunities. The focus: intermodal.
While examining the company’s long-distance stock transfer lanes (the internal freight moving between plants and distribution centers), Uber Freight’s Managed Transportation operations team spotted a pattern. Shipments were arriving in the Transportation Management System (TMS) with the mode already prescribed by the manufacturer's planning team. Uber Freight compared transit times and cost across those lanes and noticed that a meaningful share of freight was moving by truckload on lanes capable of supporting intermodal.
When Uber Freight suggested that their TM operations team take over the mode conversion process, the manufacturer was interested but cautious. Their planning team had historically owned mode selection, and changing the process carried internal risk. If a conversion affected inventory availability, the consequences would fall on their planning organization.
But several months later, the opportunity was still there, and after 20 years of partnership, the manufacturer had developed significant trust in Uber Freight. They agreed to move forward with the program.
Solution: Mode optimization, lane by lane
Uber Freight took over mode selections on qualifying lanes, starting with lower-risk internal freight to avoid impacting customers. This gave the TM operations team room to build a track record before touching more sensitive lanes.
In the early weeks, Uber Freight monitored lanes closely to quickly resolve any issues, and made sure every conversion performed as promised. As confidence grew, the program expanded. Shipments falling 1-2 days outside the required delivery date became eligible for conversion with the manufacturer’s approval. And weekly lane-level reports gave the company full visibility into how lanes were performing and where savings were accumulating.
Eventually, select customer-facing routes with enough lead time to absorb intermodal transit were put up for mode conversion consideration. Uber Freight’s intimate familiarity with the manufacturer's lane structures and customer dynamics made those judgment calls possible.
Results: Savings that opened new doors
Since the program launched in April 2025, Uber Freight has converted more than 1,300 truckload shipments to intermodal on the manufacturer's behalf, generating $1.2 million in savings across nine months. With enough lead time, Uber Freight's TM operations team drives about 80% of those conversions autonomously, while the manufacturer's team sets the parameters for which lanes qualify for conversion. Uber Freight executes within those boundaries without requiring load-by-load approval.
The mode conversion program also accelerated the manufacturer's willingness to pilot new tools alongside Uber Freight. A shipper scorecard tool, currently in development with the manufacturer, will track carrier detention by origin point — specifically, whether carriers are being loaded and turned around within a two-hour window. This will give the manufacturer's logistics leadership team a weekly view into loading compliance and detention costs by site. They’ll then use data to drive operational conversations at the facility level.
After nearly 20 years of partnership, finding a new source of efficiency at this scale reinforced what the manufacturer's team already believed: Uber Freight is consistently looking for opportunities to save them money and make them more efficient. That belief led the manufacturer to approach Uber Freight about handling port drayage. The new program launched in December 2025, adding port services to a relationship that already spanned truckload, LTL, and intermodal.
The success of the intermodal program and the savings it produced gave the manufacturer a reason to keep looking for even more opportunities to improve with Uber Freight.