How does Xeneta help food and beverage procurement teams manage reefer freight costs?

Food and beverage supply chains frequently depend on reefer container services, which are priced at a premium to dry freight and serviced by a smaller pool of carriers with specialized equipment. Without an independent benchmark, procurement teams have no way to know whether the rates they are paying reflect market conditions or simply what their carriers were willing to accept. Xeneta provides reefer rate benchmarks across key food trade lanes, giving procurement teams a clear view of where contracted rates sit relative to the market. This is the foundation for identifying overpayment, setting credible targets for the next tender, and ensuring that the premium paid for temperature-sensitive capacity is genuinely justified by market conditions rather than carrier pricing power.

How does Xeneta help food and beverage companies manage carrier risk during seasonal peaks?

Food and beverage supply chains are acutely exposed to carrier risk during peak periods. Harvest seasons, promotional windows, and holiday demand surges all create moments where freight capacity tightens, blank sailings increase, and carriers that performed reliably in quieter periods start to show cracks. For a retailer with products that have a shelf life or a promotional commitment that cannot move, a missed sailing is not an inconvenience, it is a direct commercial loss. Xeneta's Carrier Scorecard gives procurement and logistics teams continuous visibility into carrier reliability by trade lane, including schedule adherence, blank sailing frequency, and actual versus announced transit times. Monitoring this data in the lead-up to and throughout peak periods means deteriorating carrier performance is visible before it creates a supply chain failure, giving teams the time to reallocate volume, engage backup carriers, or escalate early rather than reacting after the fact. Our market monitoring capability adds another layer, tracking capacity signals and rate movements that often precede service disruptions. When spot rates spike sharply on a key lane heading into peak season, it is frequently a leading indicator of tightening capacity and elevated blank sailing risk.

How does Xeneta help large food and beverage retailers know if their freight rates reflect their volume leverage?

Retailers shipping at significant scale should not be paying average market rates. With the volume leverage that major food retailers and supermarkets bring to carrier negotiations, contracted rates should consistently sit at or near the bottom of the market on key lanes. The challenge is knowing whether they actually do. Xeneta's volume peer comparison allows procurement teams to benchmark their rates not just against the broad market, but against other shippers moving comparable volumes on the same corridors. If a retailer shipping 100,000 TEUs is paying above the market average while volume peers are at the market low, that gap has a quantifiable cost and a clear negotiating mandate.

How does Xeneta help sourcing teams demonstrate procurement performance to internal stakeholders?

Many large food and beverage businesses run centralized sourcing or procurement functions that provide freight buying as a service to business units, who in turn pay for that service. For these teams, demonstrating that their freight procurement delivers market-competitive outcomes is not just a nice to have, it is how their value is measured and their budget justified. Xeneta gives sourcing teams the independent, third-party evidence to make that case. Round-by-round tender analysis shows how each carrier's bids compared to market benchmarks and how the team's outcomes compared to industry peers. Year-on-year performance reviews quantify improvement over time. This turns what is often a subjective internal conversation into a structured, data-backed performance story that finance and leadership can interrogate and trust.

How does Xeneta help food and beverage procurement teams demonstrate their value to finance leadership?

Finance leaders in food and beverage businesses understand that freight is one of the most significant and volatile cost lines in the P&L, but they often lack visibility into whether it is being managed effectively. Procurement teams that cannot quantify their performance in market terms struggle to justify budget, headcount, and strategic investment. Xeneta provides the reporting capability to answer that question with data. How do contracted rates compare to market? Where did the team outperform? Where is savings potential still available? Presenting this analysis with independent third-party benchmarks transforms the internal procurement narrative from a qualitative claim into a quantified performance story, which is exactly what finance leadership needs to see. Associated British Foods, whose brands include Primark and Twinings, use Xeneta's executive reporting feature in every tender to bring all the data into one place and demonstrate the value of their freight procurement across multiple business units.

Xeneta for Medical Devices

Benchmark the air lanes general market rates can't see

Tariffs are eating into medical device margins, and freight is one of the few costs you still control. Xeneta benchmarks your expedited air and ocean lanes from real shipper contracts, so you negotiate from facts instead of the forwarder's number.

Book a demo Get the 2026 H2 Air Freight Outlook

Trusted by the world's leading medical device shippers

The Challenge

Tariffs and hospital cost-cutting are eating into device margins. Freight is a lever you still control.

Device pricing is locked by hospital agreements and reimbursement, so tariff costs land straight on margin. That puts every controllable cost line under scrutiny, and freight tops the list.

Tariffs add an estimated $2,000 to $8,000 per device, with nowhere to go but margin

Your highest-stakes spend is expedited air on implants, diagnostics and service parts, and general market rates don't price those lanes

Surcharges stack on top of new duty costs, and they come up in nearly two-thirds of medtech freight conversations

Why Xeneta

Built from real air and ocean contracts, on the lanes medtech actually ships

Xeneta benchmarks your expedited air and ocean lanes against rates from real shipper and forwarder contracts, shows which carriers deliver on time where a missed window costs a procedure, and validates every surcharge stacking on top of duty costs. You walk into every tender and every expedite with the market number in hand.

Customer Story

Discover how Stanley Black & Decker saves millions per year on freight with Xeneta

Read case study

Air

Benchmark the expedited air lanes carrying implants, diagnostics and field-service spares. Rates, capacity and reliability from real contracts, across 60,000+ airport pairs.

Discover Xeneta Ocean

Ocean

Bulk disposables and capital equipment move on ocean. Benchmark contract and spot rates, validate surcharges, and track reliability across 170,000+ port pairs.

Discover Xeneta Air

Frequently asked questions

Can Xeneta benchmark our expedited or specialty air lanes?

We benchmark the underlying air and ocean freight rate and map specialty and expedited moves to the nearest comparable lane. The full expedite premium is approximated, and we're candid about that, but the base rate is robust and we validate it against your own historical rates before you act. That shows you exactly where your lanes have drifted above market.

We get rate data free from our forwarder. Why pay for a benchmark?

Public data tracks dry boxes and lags the market, and forwarder numbers come from the party you're negotiating against. Xeneta is built from real shipper and forwarder contracts and is carrier-independent, so you negotiate from the same view as your counterparty rather than their narrative.

We sell DDP, so freight and duty are baked into our price. Is benchmarking still worth it?

That's exactly when it's worth it. Under DDP you absorb the freight and the volatile duty, so a market view shows where your baked-in freight has drifted above market and lets you defend the landed price you quote your customers.

How do procurement teams justify the cost while tariffs are squeezing margin?

When tariffs erode margin, freight is one of the few controllable cost lines. Teams that put a benchmark in front of a tender typically surface savings worth several multiples of the subscription, often from correcting a single expedited air lane before the contract is signed. We help build the leadership-ready ROI case before you commit.

How does Xeneta help finance forecast landed cost on constrained device pricing?

Air surcharges and duties stack until landed cost becomes hard to forecast. Xeneta validates every surcharge line against the market and forecasts freight with market trend data, so margin is protected and variance is explainable to leadership.

Xeneta for Medical Devices

Benchmark the air lanes general market rates can't see

The Challenge

Tariffs and hospital cost-cutting are eating into device margins. Freight is a lever you still control.

Tariffs add an estimated $2,000 to $8,000 per device, with nowhere to go but margin

Your highest-stakes spend is expedited air on implants, diagnostics and service parts, and general market rates don't price those lanes

Surcharges stack on top of new duty costs, and they come up in nearly two-thirds of medtech freight conversations

In medical devices, a delay stops a surgical line or a hospital procedure, and an unchecked expedite rate lands on margin. Xeneta prices the lanes where both risks live.

Why Xeneta

Built from real air and ocean contracts, on the lanes medtech actually ships

70k+

170k+

800m+

Use cases

What medtech shippers can do with Xeneta

Sourcing & Tendering

Award tenders on sustained performance

Market Monitoring & Risk Management

Benchmark expedited air and ocean lanes

Measure and evaluate Carrier/LSP performance

Allocate volume to carriers who make the date

Rate management

Validate the surcharge stack

Customer Story

Discover how Stanley Black & Decker saves millions per year on freight with Xeneta

Find out more about our solutions

Air

Ocean

Air cargo rates ran 17% above last year through H1 2026, and 58% of new contracts now run three months or shorter.

Frequently asked questions

Get a live demo tailored to your lanes, suppliers, and budget

Platform

Use Cases

Category

Teams

Industry

About

Our Data

Xeneta for Medical Devices

Benchmark the air lanes general market rates can't see

The Challenge

Tariffs and hospital cost-cutting are eating into device margins. Freight is a lever you still control.

Tariffs add an estimated $2,000 to $8,000 per device, with nowhere to go but margin

Your highest-stakes spend is expedited air on implants, diagnostics and service parts, and general market rates don't price those lanes

Surcharges stack on top of new duty costs, and they come up in nearly two-thirds of medtech freight conversations

In medical devices, a delay stops a surgical line or a hospital procedure, and an unchecked expedite rate lands on margin. Xeneta prices the lanes where both risks live.

Why Xeneta

Built from real air and ocean contracts, on the lanes medtech actually ships

70k+

170k+

800m+

Use cases

What medtech shippers can do with Xeneta

Sourcing & Tendering

Award tenders on sustained performance

Market Monitoring & Risk Management

Benchmark expedited air and ocean lanes

Measure and evaluate Carrier/LSP performance

Allocate volume to carriers who make the date

Rate management

Validate the surcharge stack

Customer Story

Discover how Stanley Black & Decker saves millions per year on freight with Xeneta

Find out more about our solutions

Air

Ocean

Air cargo rates ran 17% above last year through H1 2026, and 58% of new contracts now run three months or shorter.

Frequently asked questions

Get a live demo tailored to your lanes, suppliers, and budget