J.B. Hunt heralds new multiyear intermodal deal with Walmart

Lowell, Ark.-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services, a subsidiary of trucking and intermodal services bellwether J.B. Hunt, said last week that its J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. subsidiary inked a multiyear deal with global retail giant Walmart, with a key component of the deal being its acquisition of Walmart’s intermodal assets, including its operational intermodal container and chassis fleets.  

J.B. Hunt officials described this deal as a strategic service agreement focused on increasing both companies’ respective current volume and capacity commitments, with a focus on driving long-term value. What’s more, this is far from the first time the companies have collaborated, with J.B. Hunt noting it has worked closely with Walmart to provide efficient transportation solutions for decades.

Executives from both companies said in a statement they were bullish on prospects for this agreement.

“Mr. Hunt always said ‘Good partners attract good partners,’” said Spencer Frazier, executive vice president of sales and marketing at J.B. Hunt. “Our customers trust us to develop solutions that scale and drive efficiencies across their ever-changing supply chains. [This] announcement is a testament to the mutual trust and shared vision our companies have developed over time, and innovative arrangements like this one demonstrate J.B. Hunt’s disciplined approach to strategically allocating capital to advance our mission of driving long-term value for our people, customers and shareholders.”

And Fernando Cortes, senior vice president of transportation at Walmart, explained that finding new ways to serve customers and members and exceed their expectations is important to Walmart.

“Walmart’s long history of working with J.B. Hunt has many milestones of innovation and growth,” he said. “This agreement will strengthen our commitment to delivering goods at an everyday low cost to our customers and members.”

Larry Gross, president of Gross Transportation Consulting, noted in a LinkedIn post that Walmart (and Amazon) pushed to break the U.S. intermodal barrier to establish direct relationships with the railroads, noting that one of the drivers was the perception that eliminating the “middleman” intermodal retailer would reduce cost.

“Now it seems that Walmart has concluded that the difficulties of managing an intermodal container fleet, including chassis and drayage, resulted in higher costs than they will achieve by letting an expert provider with scale do the job,” he wrote. “Remember that the Walmart domestic containers are of standard design and not compatible with JBI containers or chassis. So JBI will be in effect managing two independent fleets.”

Tony Hatch, principal of New York-based ABH Consulting, said that this deal, in which the former buys the intermodal assets of the latter and enters into a (closer) long term commitment, is another sign that intermodal is preparing for a secular bust-out. 

“This is an example of a closer relationship building finally a true partnership,” he said. “This is paralleled by the BNSF-JBHT relationship.” 

That aforementioned relationship came in the form of a November 2023 announcement between J.B. Hunt Transport Services and BNSF Railway for a new intermodal service offering, entitled Quantum. Which accommodates what they called the service-sensitive highway freight needs of customer supply chains. And they added that the main objective of the service is on providing the consistency, agility, and speed required to move service-sensitive highway freight via rail, with a specific customer focus on service expectations, transit requirements, and operational procedures.

They also explained that the Quantum service is comprised of J.B. Hunt and BNSF operators working out of the same location, at the recently-opened Intermodal Innovation Center at the BNSF Fort Worth, Texas headquarters, where the “workflow is integrated at every step of the intermodal shipping process—from planning to execution and oversight to exception management.”