Getting a product to market has never been more expensive. Rising fuel costs, tighter carrier capacity, and regulatory changes have made freight the leading cost driver in the current market. The impact of freight overtaking material costs is felt at every step of the American manufacturing supply chain, making it more critical than ever for procurement and sourcing professionals to find partners who can meet the moment.
While competitors treat freight shipping as a pass-through cost, UFP Packaging leverages our strengths to shield customers from market volatility through geographic coverage, in-house logistics services, and innovative transport packaging systems designed from the ground up to reduce transportation costs. The result is a freight and supply chain strategy, not just a freight quote.
The war in Iran has driven rising fuel costs. Recent regulatory changes regarding broker liability and the enforcement of English-language rules for drivers have narrowed the hiring pool, diminished carrier capacity, and increased brokerage fees.
When freight shipping costs rise, the impact compounds across the manufacturing supply chain, and each additional step adds a new charge. Every leg from production to distribution to a customer's dock adds fuel surcharges, broker markups, and more. Most often, those costs land on the buyer in ways not reflected on their quote sheet. Controlling that gap requires controlling the variables that drive it, starting with how far the shipment has to travel.
Proximity is one of the most direct tools for reducing freight costs. UFP Packaging's nationwide network of over 90 locations puts manufacturing capacity closer to our customers.
UFP Packaging owns and operates 110+ facilities worldwide.
For multi-site or national accounts, this creates a sourcing advantage that single-facility suppliers cannot match. Rather than routing all freight through a single chokepoint, customers can source from the UFP Packaging facility nearest to each receiving site– reducing haul distances and fuel use, compounding savings across their supply program. Distributed manufacturing also provides supply chain resilience against regional disruptions.
When suppliers outsource logistics, customers absorb the broker markups and get limited visibility into what they're paying for. When rates spike, those suppliers can struggle to respond.
In-house logistics can help reduce transportation costs and provide greater flexibility.
UFP Packaging manages trucking and logistics in-house. This allows the company to assess and optimize freight shipping costs individually for each customer based on actual shipment data, not guesses.
For procurement teams, that means better transparency and accountability: a clearer picture of what's being paid and why, fewer invoice surprises, and direct communication rather than a chain of third parties that inflate delivered costs without adding value.
As a national transportation packaging manufacturer and supply chain partner, innovation is UFP Packaging's third front in the war on freight costs. Just as the UFP Packaging Testing and Certification Lab helps customers optimize their unit load to ensure products reach market safely and as cost-efficiently as possible, ship-flat crate systems like U-Loc and Clamp-Lock help maximize units per truckload. The downstream effect is fewer trucks per shipment and lower cost per unit delivered.
Innovative crating systems pack more into each truckload, reducing freight and downstream costs.
Both systems are designed for on-site assembly, eliminating wasted space in transit without sacrificing structural integrity. Across a high-volume supply program, transitioning to knock-down crate systems can yield substantial savings.
These three levers are even more effective when applied together. Consider a manufacturer operating across three regional sites, sourcing pre-assembled crates from a single distant supplier. Delivered costs are high, and freight invoices routinely exceed budget.
By sourcing from the nearest UFP Packaging facility for each site, embracing innovative transport packaging like ship-flat crates, and gaining direct visibility through in-house logistics, that customer reduces delivered cost, improves invoice predictability, and gains a supplier accountable for freight outcomes—not just manufacturing output.
Diesel prices, driver hiring pools, and carrier capacity fluctuate outside any company's control. What is controllable is the supplier structure, which determines how much freight exposure a procurement team carries.
UFP Packaging's network proximity, in-house logistics, and freight-smart packaging innovations work together to reduce that exposure systemically. Fewer surprises, fewer delays, fewer headaches add up to a better partner.
To assess your freight profile and identify savings opportunities, contact a UFP Packaging representative or explore U-Loc and Clamp-Lock crate specifications directly.