The biggest private motor carriers across a variety of industries experienced ups and downs during the past year as they adapted to changing freight market conditions.

In recent years, Ashley Furniture Industries has been expanding its own private trucking fleet — both organic­ally and through acquisition — to further bolster its supply chain.

Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen and Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran made a number of pledges to their customers and employees if their proposed grocery merger prevails.

Private motor carriers, like all trucking operations, have adjusted to shifting freight market conditions in the past year as truck capacity has loosened and freight rates have softened.

From food service distributors to in-house trucking divisions of retailers, the largest private motor carriers in North America  have remained busy even as the freight market has cooled.

Last year Walmart Inc. dangled $110,000 trucking jobs to its own store workers. Now, the first classes of students are graduating.

Walmart Inc. is planning its longest drone deliveries yet by teaming up with Alphabet Inc.’s Wing unit at two Dallas-area stores.  

The proposed merger of food retail giants Kroger and Albertsons has elicited criticism from seven secretaries of state.

Trucking company Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. has offered $1.5 billion to acquire Yellow Corp.’s 169 terminals out of bankruptcy, more than a previous offer from Estes Express Lines.

Amazon has restarted a shipping service it paused in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and that competes with carriers such as FedEx and UPS.