Dive Brief:
- Food and beverage distributor Martin Brower and autonomous trucking tech firm Kodiak Robotics are delivering freight autonomously with a safety driver eight times per week from Roanoke, Texas, to Oklahoma City, according to a news release.
- The deliveries involve time-critical refrigerated freight for restaurants, continuing runs that began in July 2022 and have already totaled over 600. After the autonomous vehicle route, local drivers distribute the products to multiple restaurants.
- “Your next order of fries may have traveled on a Kodiak truck,” CEO and founder Don Burnette said. The company alluded to Martin Brower’s partnerships with major restaurant brands, which include McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A, but held off from saying if those third-party customers are involved.
Dive Insight:
Kodiak’s development in reefer freight is making the case that autonomous trucks can provide safe, reliable, on-time deliveries, said Michael Wiesinger, Kodiak’s VP of commercialization and transportation sector general manager.
“If you don't deliver reliably or if we don't deliver on time on refrigerated goods or other perishable goods, that of course creates spoilage and so on,” he said, noting how the company is demonstrating AV capabilities from dry van to reefer.
The deliveries in July 2022 marked the first reefer deliveries for Kodiak, and another reefer case followed the following year with C.R. England and Tyson Foods, Wiesinger said.
Martin Brower also joined Kodiak’s Partner Deployment Program, which involves companies signing an agreement and taking a 360-degree view of a carrier’s operations as well as evaluating which lanes can be served with autonomous trucks.
Kodiak seeks out partners that have a vision and focus to make autonomy happen. “We really want to have the right companies that we are working with,” Wiesinger said. “This is very important to us.”
Kodiak aims to begin making its vehicles truly autonomous by the end of this year.
