62 facilities audited4,046 dock doors9,055 trailer spots5 rail-served
We core-sampled 62 of ~62 DCs, We mapped the largest, newest, and most and least automated banner DCs and Ocado CFCs; the gate-to-dock pattern held across every one.
Network size: Kroger FY2024 10-K, Item 2 Properties + Merchandising (as of Feb 3, 2024): 33 food production plants (14 dairies, 9 deli/bakery, 5 grocery, 2 beverage, 1 meat, 2 cheese) plus a supply-chain network Kroger states as more than 30 distribution centers (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000056873/000155837024004603/kr-20240203x10k.htm) (2024-02)
Public audit. Not affiliated with The Kroger Co.. Data from satellite imagery + public records.
Click any site for its gate, docks, and drop yards. No badge, no NDA, just what a driver sees.
Your TMS runs the road. Your WMS runs the building. The yards are the tier between them, and they were never on the network.
Every truck gets re-keyed, re-queued, and re-found at each step. The lost time lives between the steps, which is why no single tool ever fixed it. The audit below is that gap, measured on your real yards.
A real audited site, played gate→dock→exit on the true yard geometry. Switch sites with the picker.
Truck queues at the gate. Guard checks paper BOL, runs the plate, types data into a screen, prints a gate pass.
Movement durations are honest floors set by yard geometry; the uplift lands on the wait fields (queue + dispatch + secondary checkpoints). “Today” timings reflect the radios-and-clipboards world; “With YardFlow” reflects the protocol acting end-to-end. We may be wrong about parts of this, your actual numbers will tell us where.
Read from satellite + Street View across all 62 facilities. At a comparable network, Primo Brands cut drop-and-hook turns from ~48 to ~24 min. Set your real volumes and margins in the calculator to put a number on it.
Three patterns held across the sites we sampled. None of them show up on a facility list. All of them change how the yard runs.
33 owned plants sit behind the same yard problem as the DCs. Production capacity is real only when the trailer leaves the plant on time.
Two models run side by side: legacy banner DCs and Ocado CFCs, plus Home Chef. One operating standard spans all 62 sites, not one per banner.
58 of 62 sites already run drop yards and 43 sit behind a gate or guard, so the win lands on infrastructure Kroger already built.
This audit is the evidence. The model is the math. Open the calculator seeded with The Kroger Co.’s audited yards, set your real volumes and margins, and it sizes the opportunity to the dollar.
This deep-dive is the evidence behind the /for/kroger memo.
Tell us where we got it wrong, or see what 15 minutes of orchestration looks like on your worst site.
A 30-minute call, direct with Casey. We show you what we found across your yards, you tell us straight where it fits and where it does not. If the call goes well, we talk pilot. If not, you keep the analysis.
None of these times work? Email me at casey@freightroll.com or call or text me at 410-236-7434, and we’ll find one.
Casey Larkin, YardFlow. Jake, our founder, joins when it helps.
