[#279] Supply Chain in Numbers - Mar 31, 2025
FedEx wins $400M in Healthcare business, Descartes acquires 3GTMS, Texas has a 42-mile conveyor, CVS plans smaller 5k sqft stores, Swap raised $40 million
Welcome to “Supply Chain in Numbers.” This newsletter tracks significant numbers from the supply chain world. Five prominent numbers are published every Monday. If you have any feedback, please send it to me.
$400 million from the Healthcare business
FedEx is onboarding nearly $400 million in new annualized revenue for its healthcare vertical over the next 90 days. The business gains will allow FedEx to end the fiscal year with about $9 billion in healthcare revenue.FedEx Surround, a real-time shipping visibility platform, is a key result driver. Its tracking capabilities benefit high-value shipments, which healthcare customers provide plenty of. The company recently expanded the platform’s monitoring and intervention offering to 40 countries, including several Asian and European markets. The most recent gains built upon the more than $500 million in quality healthcare agreements that FedEx landed in fiscal year 2024. [Supply Chain Dive]
$115 million acquisition
Logistics software company Descartes has acquired 3GTMS, a widely used domestic transportation management system (TMS) provider. The $115 million all-cash deal strengthens Descartes’ TMS reach within the US shipper community, especially in managing truckload, less-than-truckload, and parcel shipments. 3GTMS adds to Descartes' existing catalog of TMS products, including ones specifically for shippers and brokers. 3GTMS, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, built a TMS known for its ability to optimize domestic over-the-road shipments through advanced planning, rating, consolidation, and routing tools. This functionality is particularly valuable for shippers, 3PLs, and freight brokers looking to streamline operations and reduce costs. [Freightwaves]
42-mile conveyor belt
It’s longer than the width of Rhode Island, snakes across the oil fields of the southwest U.S., and crawls at 10 mph — too slow for a truck and too long for a train. It’s a new sight: the longest conveyor belt in America. Atlas Energy Solutions, a Texas-based oil field company, has installed a 42-mile-long (67 kilometers) conveyor belt to transport millions of tons of sand for hydraulic fracturing. The belt, the company named “The Dune Express,” runs from tiny Kermit, Texas, and across state borders into Lea County, New Mexico. Tall and lanky with lids that resemble solar modules, the steel structure could almost be mistaken for a roller coaster. [IEN]
12 stores of 5,000 sqft each
CVS is preparing to open a dozen stores offering full-service pharmacies but very limited retail, the latest example of a national drugstore chain responding to a long stretch of declining retail sales. The new stores will be on average less than 5,000 square feet, or not even half the size of a typical CVS location. The 12 new stores are expected to open over the next year in cities and towns throughout the U.S. These shrunken CVS stores will still stock health-related products such as over-the-counter cough and pain medications or first-aid care. However, missing from their aisles will be the vast array of consumer items, such as greeting cards, groceries, and nail polish, which have been staples at CVS and other national drugstore chains for decades. [WSJ]
$40 million funding
London-founded startup, Swap, which is building tools for e-commerce companies to navigate the cross-border trading world better, announced $40 million in funding to expand. To date, Swap has racked up some 500 brands as customers. It has been securing that business with a platform that gives its users a single place to manage logistics and shipping operations, including inventory, returns, and product recycling. Those functions typically get handled — or mishandled — in a much more fragmented way. Its initial traction has been in the fashion industry, and it plans to develop software tailored to the specific needs of other segments, such as beauty, home goods, and consumer technology. [Tech Crunch]