Welcome to this week’s Supply Chain Radar, where falling imports meet rising AI panic, rare-earth momentum, viral turtles, and a freight-world mea culpa you don’t see every day. 📉🤖🐢🪨
U.S.–bound import bookings are down 11%, signaling one of the softest peak seasons in years—yet lean inventories could turn any demand pop into a rate spike. AI, meanwhile, is quietly splitting the industry between teams gaining speed and teams generating slop (Pesti’s Manifest panel will sort that out).
👉 Scroll on for muted peaks, AI truth serum, funding waves, holiday shortages, leadership scores, and the moments the industry went full Franklin.
SCR Number of the Week: 11%
U.S.-bound import bookings have slipped 11% this fall, marking one of the weakest demand stretches in years. After an unusually early surge driven by tariff chaos, shippers have pulled back to a slight inventory reduction mode—mirrored by an October LMI reading of 49.5. The holiday outlook? Muted. But leaner inventories also mean any demand pop could send rates climbing fast.
AI can accelerate your GTM engine—or quietly torch customer trust. At Manifest, operators from Truck Parking Club, Port X Logistics, SnapFulfill, and Pesti break down how to use AI without sliding into slop. Expect real campaigns, real failures, and real frameworks you can copy on Monday.
Operations are evolving fast—but the industry still lacks clear benchmarks. That’s where you come in. Take our short survey to share your real-world challenges, the tools you rely on, the tech gaps that slow you down, and the innovations you’re watching next. Your insights fuel the 2026 report on efficiency, resilience, sustainability, and automation.
Tariffs, tight capacity, weather swings, and shifting APAC–US/EU flows reshaped 2025, and 2026 is already throwing new curveballs. Join industry experts for an executive-level breakdown of what really changed this year and how to protect cost, capacity, and service in the year ahead. Perfect for exporters, importers, and supply-chain leaders planning budgets and contracts.
Parents heading out for Black Friday toy runs will find shelves far thinner than 2024. Toy imports are down 14.7% YTD, with spring shipments collapsing as much as 40% after tariffs jumped from 0% to ~22%. China’s share has fallen sharply as Vietnam and Mexico pick up production—but much of the value chain remains China-dependent.
Warehouse operations hinge on a handful of metrics that keep accuracy high, flow steady, and customers happy. Inventory and picking accuracy build trust, receiving cycle time prevents bottlenecks, turnover exposes what’s dragging on cash, and smart space utilization keeps costs in check. But on-time shipment remains the ultimate indicator of operational discipline—and customer satisfaction.
The internet crowned Franklin the Turtle as 2025’s unbothered king, as the childhood hero went viral this week after the Secretary of Defense used the turtle in a twitter post. The freight industry had its Franklin memes going for the viral event as well.
👉 Send us your Franklin moment — we’ll feature the best ones next week.
Race for Rare Earths Just Got Faster 🪨
The U.S. Energy Department is putting $134 million behind projects that can commercially recover and refine rare earths from mine tailings, discarded electronics and other waste—an effort to rebuild domestic capacity after years of relying heavily on foreign suppliers. The move follows nearly $1B in earlier critical-mineral initiatives and supports full-scale U.S. extraction of materials like neodymium and dysprosium.
FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller issued a rare apology after mistakenly amplifying a report that implied CRST was shutting down entirely. In reality, the carrier simply shifted 200 trucks out of an OTR division—a routine adjustment within a 4,300-unit fleet. Fuller took responsibility for the confusion, calling the tweet “sloppy” and praising CRST as a strong, respected operator.
Here’s the scoop on the SCR Egg-O-Meter: It’s a brand-new rating tool that checks out what the media said about business and supply chain execs in the past 30 days and scores them based on the tonality of mentions from a natural language processing algorithm.
The “Egg-o-Meter” is like a quirky kitchen gadget for measuring how well a supply chain leader can cook up success. It cracks open key traits—like adaptability, collaboration, and innovation—and scrambles them into a perfect leadership recipe. The goal? To avoid being a hard-boiled traditionalist or a runny risk-taker. It’s all about being the ideal sunny-side-up mix to lead teams through the ever-changing heat of the supply chain kitchen! 🍳📦
Stephanie Hart has emerged as one of the most influential operations and supply chain leaders in the world—shaping Nestlé’s global network with a blend of technical depth, digital fluency, and a long-view commitment to resilience. After more than 20 years rising through Nestlé’s manufacturing, supply chain, R&D, and factory leadership roles across four continents, she returned to the company in 2024 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer. Her mandate: modernize the world’s largest food and beverage supply chain while strengthening its environmental and social foundations.
Hart’s leadership today spans operations strategy, manufacturing and engineering, people safety, procurement, logistics, and sustainability for a workforce of nearly 300,000. Her earlier experience at Beyond Meat and Warby Parker—where she guided global operations and end-to-end supply chain transformation—brought a sharpened entrepreneurial and digital edge that Nestlé’s CEO credits as essential for the company’s next chapter.
One of the most impactful areas under Hart’s operations umbrella is Nestlé’s work in securing the future of cocoa. Recent research led by Nestlé scientists and global partners mapped more than 95% of cocoa’s genetic diversity—creating a “Noah’s Ark” of 96 core cocoa varieties that will accelerate breeding for climate resilience, disease resistance, and higher yields. This foundational work, alongside innovations like using more of the cocoa pod to reduce waste and the continued expansion of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, reflects the long-term supply chain resilience Hart champions.
Across sustainability, technology, and operational excellence, Hart is helping rewrite what a future-proof food supply chain looks like—scientific, equitable, and built to endure.
She also has struggled with the problem of work-life balance, and recently shared her journey trying to find the right fit for her family.
👇Check out her interview on those discoveries below
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