UNFI · 30 US DCs, mapped from satellite
The Yard Network System, by FreightRoll.
You automated the buildings. The yards are the half that is left.
You raised distribution-center productivity more than 6% in Q2, on the back of automation, network changes, and lean management. Robots now pick the cases in Sarasota and Manchester, and RELEX is going live across the network. Inside the building you are precise. Outside it, the yard is where a frozen reefer can wait behind whoever pulled up first, with no live order to the queue. That is shrink, and it is capacity you never get to sell. You run the largest natural and organic grocery distribution network in North America. 56 DCs feed more than 30,000 customer locations, and the trailer is the production unit.
YardFlow is the Yard Network System, the software layer between your TMS and your WMS. The same automation logic that lifted your pick rate stops at the gate, so the yard stays the one queue that automation never reached. Primo Brands has implemented the driver journey system wide, cut trailer turn times by 50%, and shipped about 5% more volume on the same dock-office headcount. The audit shows where the same gain sits in your network.
- The gapYour TMS runs the road, your WMS runs the building, nothing runs the yards.
- What we doOne digital standard for all DCs. EZ-Pass at the gate, air-traffic control for the trailers.
- The proofPrimo: about 5% more volume on flat headcount, turns cut 48 to 24, and 100% of the network committed.
- The payoffReduce turn times, gain 5% capacity per DC. Eliminate paper and detention expenses. No change to headcount.
Already live at scale · the Primo Brands network
The Yard Network System runs the yards behind these household brands. Live today, rolling to 100% of the network.
Using actual results from Primo Brands, we modeled the potential prize for UNFI.
Proven at Primo, modeled across the network
The problem
Every yard "does it their own way." That is not strategy. That is drift.
Ask two of your DCs and we would expect the same line: our yards are different.
In our experience they are not. Same trucks, same reefers, same moves. What differs is the workaround each site improvised, hardened into a process nobody chose. At York PA, every inbound reefer for 110 dock doors funnels through one gated entry on 41 acres. One radio, one clipboard, one guard sets the order, so the frozen load that should jump the line waits behind whoever pulled up first. A 6% faster building only widens the gap, since the pick line now empties trailers the yard cannot stage fast enough. Legacy YMS, the SuperValu-era PINC stack, only ever reached your biggest DCs. Our read is that the rest are flying blind. You would know better than we would.
Why now
Your buildings just got 6% faster. The yards that feed them did not, and that gap is the new cap.
In Q2 you raised distribution-center productivity more than 6%, on automation, network changes, and lean management.
Robotic case pick is live in Sarasota and Manchester, and RELEX finishes its network rollout this year. Every one of those wins lands inside the building. The yard is now the slowest link, and a faster pick line only feeds it trailers sooner. Your yards are the cap on what your network can sell, and the yards never got the upgrade. The June 2025 cyberattack made the point in the hardest way. Your systems went down, you ran the yards by hand, and the manual fallback cost $350M to $400M in sales. A digital yard is the standard that holds when the rest of the stack does not. The freight cycle adds urgency. For the first time in four years, pricing power is swinging to carriers as capacity tightens. Detention starts at hour two and runs $50 to $100 an hour, and carriers now pick their shippers. When trucks cost this much, every printed BOL and every trailer your driver hunts down counts double. Natural grocery runs an unforgiving clock, and a reefer your yard loses today is shrink this week.
The Yard Network System
A new layer of your stack, between the TMS and the WMS.
Every yard runs the same jobs, and the same people run them. The Yard Network System gives each of them one standard across every site. The driver checks in from their phone with flowDRIVER. The spotter moves the trailer while a cab camera maps the yard with flowTWIN. The dock coordinator assigns the door from flowYMS. The dock office signs the BOL with flowBOL. The executive watches every yard on flowNETWORK. Under all of it, machine vision reads the truck at the gate and an agent dispatches the next move. Think EZ-Pass at the gate and air-traffic control for your trailers.
The proof · already at scale
No company had ever put its whole yard network on one system. Primo just did.
The point is not faster trucks. It is realized production capacity: 5% more volume out the door on the same headcount, capacity those plants could not ship before.
Primo started with one layer: the driver journey. Text the truck instead of checking it in. Paper out of the gate. No more driver-to-dock-office handoff. Across the 24 sites where it went live, those yards shipped about 5% more volume than the sites without it, on the same dock-office headcount. That alone is why Primo committed all ~260 sites to the full Yard Network System, the first national shipper to standardize every yard on one protocol. The YMS is rolling now. Live at 10 plants, every production site by the end of Q3. The highest-volume campus is going fully automated end to end, on a trailer map that updates itself in real time. The 5% came from the lightest touch. The rest is still ahead. UNFI would be the first national grocery wholesaler to put its whole yard network on one protocol.
“Your software enabled us to take on additional volume while remaining headcount neutral in the dock office. That was an integral part of our strategy, and it has been proven.”
Result measured on the driver-journey layer, before the YMS rollout. Primo is live at 10 plants today, every production site by the end of Q3.
What it touches
A new layer, not a new migration.
YardFlow runs in the yard and talks to the systems you already have. Your TMS and WMS stay the systems of record. Nobody is ripping anything out.
Built for enterprise infosec review. We connect over your standard API or EDI and scope to yard operations, not your ERP of record. Full integration and security review happen in the audit.
- In the yardflowDRIVER (driver app, no install) and flowGATE (camera gate) run on YardFlow. Nothing changes on the DC floor.
- Keep your YMSRun alongside PINC or any legacy YMS you already operate. Switch only if and when you decide to.
- ReadsYour TMS appointments, over standard API or EDI.
- WritesGate and turn events back to your WMS, so dock and inventory stay current.
- IT lift
Your own audit
This is UNFI's own audit, not a generic benchmark. We mapped 30 US DCs from satellite. Here is what the handoffs cost today, and where the standard lands first.
- 25 of 30
- Already run drop yardswhere the 48 to 24 minute drop-and-hook win lands
- 14 of 30
- Gated with a guard or boothflowGATE automates the check-in step
- 26 of 30
- Long entry drives where queues buildpre-arrival check-in keeps the queue off the road
See all 30 sitesOpen the audit →We are not asking for a pilot. We are asking for a conversation.
A 30-minute call, direct with Casey. We show you what we found on your network, you tell us straight where it fits. We will not tell you which site to start at. We have only seen your yards from orbit. You run them, so you already know which one goes first. If the call goes well, we talk about where that is. If the call does not land, 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.
