The grocery industry has spent much of 2026 grappling with higher costs for food, labor, energy and transportation. Now another problem is developing farther down the supply chain: the trucking industry is losing both companies and capacity.
At least 16 trucking, delivery and transportation companies entered bankruptcy proceedings between late August and September 21, according to federal court filings reviewed by FreightWaves. The filings included everything from single-truck operators to carriers with fleets of dozens of vehicles.
That followed at least 21 transportation and logistics companies that filed for Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 protection between July 27 and August 25.
The bankruptcies are occurring at the same time that trucking companies are confronting record operating costs, extremely high diesel prices and a tightening supply of qualified drivers.
Now, none of these problems are particularly new, but this is the first time in recent memory when all three are occurring at the same time.
Setting aside the question of whether individual trucking companies can survive, supermarket executives must now ask: Will there be enough trucks and drivers available to move America’s food efficiently – and at today’s transportation rates?
Trucking’s Sub-1% Margin Problem
The trucking industry entered the current diesel crisis in a weakened financial position. The American Transportation Research Institute reported that the average cost of operating a truck reached $2.336 per mile in 2025, a 3.4% increase from 2024 and the highest level in ATRI’s history. Excluding fuel, costs increased 4.2%, reaching $1.854 per mile.
Several major expenses rose substantially. Toll costs increased 13.2%, repair and maintenance costs climbed 8.6%, driver benefits increased 6.6% and tire costs rose 6.4%. At the same time, freight rates have not always increased enough to compensate carriers for those expenses.
ATRI found that the average operating margins for truckload carriers were only 0.4% in 2025, Refrigerated carriers were only slightly better, at 0.6%. To me this is a shocking statistic, I have been in the grocery industry for over 30 years and while I knew retailer margins were very small, I had no idea how small the margins were for freight companies. Obviously, these thin operating margins leave very little room to absorb new costs.
And wow we’re in the grips of the diesel shock. The national average price of diesel reached approximately $6.53 per gallon on September 22, according to AAA. That’s about 76% higher than a year earlier. For an industry operating with thin margins, that’s clearly a significant – perhaps debilitating – financial hit.
And smaller carriers are particularly vulnerable. They often lack the purchasing power, fuel programs and balance sheets of the largest national fleets. For some carriers, diesel may be the expense that turns a difficult business environment into a bankruptcy filing.
There Is Another Problem: Drivers
Even if a carrier somehow survives financially, it still needs someone to drive the truck. That’s becoming increasingly difficult. ACT Research’s Driver Availability Index rose to 38.5 in July from 34.4 in June, but the index remained well below 50. A reading below 50 indicates that carriers continue to experience contracting driver availability. The index had reached a five-year low of 30.4 in April.
It’s important to note the U.S. may not be experiencing a simple nationwide shortage in which there are literally no truck drivers available. Instead, carriers are finding it difficult to obtain the qualified drivers they need for the routes, equipment and freight they operate.
That problem becomes more serious when specialized freight is involved. Long-haul routes, refrigerated transportation and other demanding segments can require drivers who are willing and qualified to handle schedules that can be less attractive than regional or local work.
Recent federal enforcement changes affecting commercial driver’s licenses have also reduced the pool of drivers available to some carriers.
This represents a “flipping of the script” for the grocery industry. The freight market spent several years dealing with excess capacity and weak rates. Now the balance is beginning to move in the opposite direction.
Like dominos, these connected impacts will start to stack up: Bankruptcies remove carriers. Fleet reductions remove trucks. Driver shortages leave some trucks parked. High operating costs make remaining trucks more expensive to operate. The result can be a transportation market with less usable capacity even if overall freight demand remains relatively weak.
Grocery Could Feel the Impact First
The grocery industry is especially sensitive to transportation capacity because so much food has to move quickly. Consider the difference between dry grocery and perishables. A truck carrying paper products or canned goods may have some flexibility if a shipment is delayed. Also they can ship LTL, sharing the cost of freight with several loads, and destinations.
What Supermarket Executives Should Watch
Five transportation indicators that could signal trouble ahead
1. Trucking bankruptcies
A rising number of carrier failures means capacity is leaving the market. Pay particular attention to regional carriers serving your distribution centers and specialized refrigerated carriers.
2. Driver availability
Don’t assume that the number of registered trucks represents the amount of usable capacity. A truck without a qualified driver is effectively an idle asset.
3. Refrigerated tender rejections
Increasing rejection rates can signal that grocery shippers are having difficulty securing the contracted capacity they expect. Rising reefer rejections should be viewed as an early warning signal.
4. Spot-market freight rates
When contracted carriers cannot accept loads, shippers turn to the spot market. A sustained increase in spot rates can indicate that transportation capacity is tightening.
5. Diesel and fuel surcharges
Fuel remains one of the quickest ways for transportation costs to move higher. Supermarkets should monitor not only the price of diesel but also how quickly fuel surcharges are being passed through their transportation contracts.
The Executive Takeaway
Watch capacity – not just freight rates.
A carrier bankruptcy, driver shortage or spike in rejected loads may not immediately affect a supermarket’s transportation bill. But several of those indicators moving in the same direction can signal that higher freight costs are coming.
A truck carrying fresh produce, dairy, meat has less options, given the short shelf life of the product. These products depend on reliable transportation and temperature-controlled equipment. That is why refrigerated capacity deserves particular attention.
In August, FreightWaves reported refrigerated tender rejections (that is, when a trucking company declines a load offer from a shipper) of approximately 19.5%, substantially above the national truckload rejection rate of 14.36%. Tender rejections are an important indicator of how difficult it is for shippers to secure contracted capacity.
For grocery distributors, that can become a significant issue. If a carrier rejects a load, the shipper may have to turn to the spot market and pay more to find another truck.
The Cost Can Move Through the Supply Chain
What we are seeing are cascading events; each separate event is not significant in and of itself, but each contributes to the higher cost of freight. Higher diesel costs are eating into freight companies’ already thin margins. Truck bankruptcies and fewer drivers lead to fewer trucking options – and therefore higher rates from remaining freight companies.
It may take time, but it’s a virtual certainty that these will make their way to food prices.
Transportation costs can affect retail, manufacturing, agriculture and consumer-products companies, creating pressure beyond the trucking industry itself. For grocery retailers and their customers, the concern is not necessarily that every increase will immediately appear on the shelf. Rather, transportation becomes yet another cost that manufacturers, distributors and retailers have to negotiate and absorb.
The most vulnerable part of the grocery supply chain is refrigerated transportation. The trouble we’re seeing here could be the proverbial early-warning canary in the coal mine. Produce, meat, dairy and frozen foods require specialized equipment and reliable delivery schedules. A shortage of drivers can be particularly disruptive because refrigerated carriers cannot necessarily substitute one driver or truck for another.
If a carrier loses several drivers, its effective capacity can fall even if its fleet size doesn’t change. That makes driver availability almost as important as the number of trucks. Logistics planning might need to start including a discussion of usable refrigerated and dry capacity availability in the markets.
A New Supply-Chain Equation
Grocery executives have traditionally focused on whether there were enough trucks, but now a more complicated question is surfacing: Are there enough financially healthy carriers with enough qualified drivers operating enough trucks to move the right freight at the right time?
That’s clearly a much different issue. The recent bankruptcy wave suggests some carriers are no longer financially capable of remaining in the market. At the same time, driver availability remains below historical norms, while transportation costs are being pushed higher by record diesel prices and other operating expenses. For grocery retailers, that combination could create a new source of inflationary pressure.
We all remember the chaotic supply-chain disruptions of the pandemic, when our “just in time” logistics system seized up. We might well be on the cusp of another big disruption – one that will begin not with a shortage of food but a dearth of the people and companies needed to move it from A to B.