Averitt Express has expanded its facility in Laredo, Texas, with the addition of 35,000-square-foot distribution and fulfillment space. The expansion increases the company’s ability to provide a wider array of supply chain services to customers that move freight through the continent’s busiest trade port with Mexico.
“We are excited to be able to provide our customers that ship to and from Mexico with greater capabilities that will help them streamline their cross-border supply chain,” said Wayne Spain, Averitt’s president and chief operating officer. “Our expansion in Laredo comes on the heels of the passage of the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will only increase the already-growing demand for freight transportation across the Southern border.”
The addition of the enclosed distribution and fulfillment center brings the total size of the facility to 62,500 square feet with 48 truck doors.
Averitt opened its service center in Laredo in 1999 to primarily handle the flow of less-than-truckload and full load freight across the border. Since then, the needs of cross-border shippers have evolved with the advent of e-commerce and the nearshoring of manufacturing back to North America in recent years.
The positioning of the distribution and fulfillment center in Laredo will allow Averitt to provide shippers with quick access to freight staging, inventory management and a host of consolidation and deconsolidation services that would be typically handled further north or south of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Our goal is to help shippers minimize the touchpoints in their North America supply chain,” said Ed Habe, Averitt’s vice president of Mexico sales. “By preparing incoming and outgoing freight for distribution at the border, we can help reduce the number of touch points that the traditional cross-border strategy involves.”
In addition to providing space to store and process freight, Averitt has also introduced an in-house customs clearance service to further simplify its ability to provide a complete solution to cross-border shippers.
“We want to make shipping across the border as easy as moving freight from Memphis to Atlanta,” said Habe. “Whether you are shipping from Mexico to the U.S. or Canada, or vice versa, you can count on our team to handle the entire process with just one contact and one invoice. We call it the ‘Power of One.’”
Averitt’s expansion in Laredo follows recent openings and expansions in Atlanta, GA, Kernersville, NC and Houston, TX.
