Introduction

A national food and agricultural producer engaged PraxiChain to benchmark its rail and truck freight rates against the market and determine what was really driving a multi-year rise in transportation spend. With freight moving across dozens of plants and distribution locations, leadership needed to know whether the cost pressure was a rate or contracting issue, or something upstream of both — and what to do about it.

At A Glance

Our transportation and logistics experts delivered a full rate benchmarking study and a phased savings roadmap, identifying more than $10 million in annual savings opportunities across rail, truck and private fleet operations —with additional structural savings still being quantified —and where freight expenditure was actually being lost.

Requirements

  • Benchmark existing rail and truck freight rates against best-in-market rates across all major lanes
  • Evaluate existing carrier contracts and contracting practices against market standards
  • Identify the true drivers of rising freight spend and deliver actionable, owner-assigned initiatives via a formal roadmap

The Challenge

Transportation costs had climbed sharply over several years, and the organization’s initial assumption was that freight rates themselves were the problem. Rail and truck spend was reviewed lane by lane against thousands of shipments, but the pattern didn’t hold: rates were largely in line with the market, and negotiated contracts compared well against industry benchmarks.

At the same time, a meaningful share of truck and rail volumes was moving at a premium to baseline costs, private rail fleet utilization showed clear gaps, and the organization lacked the forecast accountability and performance data needed to see why. Without a clear answer, leadership risked chasing the wrong lever — renegotiating rates that were already competitive — while the actual cost driver went unaddressed. 

PraxiChain Solution

PraxiChain stood up parallel rail and truck workstreams and conducted a comprehensive benchmarking study spanning a full rolling twelve-month period: tens of thousands of shipments, dozens of supporting documents, and structured interviews with stakeholders across transportation, plants and sales. Rail and truck rates were compared against independent market benchmarks lane by lane to separate genuinely above-market pricing from noise. 

The team then went a layer deeper, tracing shipment-level variance back to its root cause rather than stopping at the rate comparison. That analysis surfaced a consistent pattern: the largest source of excess cost wasn’t the negotiated rate at all, but unplanned, last-minute shipments created upstream by production and forecast misses, which forced reliance on spot capacity and out-of-contract carrier allocations. PraxiChain also assessed private rail fleet utilization and found meaningful efficiency gaps that visibility tools and performance KPIs could close. 

From this analysis, PraxiChain built a savings roadmap organized by four workstreams — rail rate and contract opportunities, truck spend discipline, private fleet efficiency, and upstream process and accountability reform — each with named initiatives, owners, and a sequencing plan so the organization could pursue near-term wins while building towards structural change.

Results

PraxiChain’s benchmark identified more than $10 million in annual savings opportunities — spanning above-market rail lanes, truck rate and contract variance, and private fleet efficiency — and reframed the cost conversation: rates were competitive, and the larger opportunity was operational. The rail and truck analyses pinpointed specific lane groups and contract terms worth renegotiating. At the same time, the fleet review identified a clear path to reduced private car requirements through GPS visibility and utilization KPIs. 

Most significantly, the engagement shifted leadership’s attention upstream — toward production planning integration and plant- and sales-level forecast accountability — as the largest lever for reducing unplanned shipments and the premium spend that comes with them. With additional structural and process-driven savings still being sized, the organization now has a phased roadmap spanning rate negotiations, contract KPIs, fleet monitoring, and cross-functional accountability programs, positioning it to convert a rate-benchmarking study into a durable, eight-figure reduction in total freight cost.


$10M+ in annual freight savings identified across rail, truck & fleet


Ready to see what’s really driving your freight costs?
Contact PraxiChain to talk about a rate benchmarking study for your organization.