Week in Review: Hot Nikes, Cool Rates & a Pharma Pill Plot Twist

A sneaker resale kingpin just got busted for buying $500,000 worth of Nikes that fell off a train. And that’s just this week’s opening act. Ocean shipping rates just hit their lowest point since 2023 as carriers cautiously test the Red Sea again. Smucker’s is desperately pouring $120 million into its Georgia Twinkie factory to salvage a disastrous Hostess acquisition that’s fighting against the Ozempic era. Eli Lilly’s weight loss pill flopped hard in August, but now diabetes patients are giving it a second life. And Mercedes figured out creative ways to turn its entire supply chain into a green machine. Let’s dig in!

When Your Sneaker Hustle Goes Off the Rails: A $500K Wake-Up Call

Adeel Shams, founder of popular sneaker resale platform CoolKicks, thought he’d scored the ultimate sneaker drop. Turns out, though, his $500,000 Nike haul had fallen off a train first, and the cops caught on. 

The Sole Suspect Gets Laced Up

Police raided the CoolKicks warehouse in Santa Monica on October 2 and quickly uncovered 2,100 pairs of stolen shoes and 150 cartons of apparel that had vanished from a Southern California cargo train. The 34-year-old Shams, who counts Travis Kelce and Chris Brown among his celebrity clientele, found himself booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property alongside three others. CoolKicks claims it “entered into this purchase in good faith,” but law enforcement agencies—including Union Pacific Railroad Police, Los Angeles Port Police, Los Angeles Airport Police, and the L.A. County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation—didn’t buy it. Shams walked free the next day, but his reputation might need more than a shoeshine.

Cargo Crime Hits the Fast Track

Shams’ arrest exposes a cargo theft epidemic racing through America’s supply chains. CargoNet recorded 1,671 thefts across the U.S. and Canada during 2025’s first half—a 13% spike year over year—while Overhaul tracked 1,030 U.S. incidents. Last year saw 3,798 total cargo crimes, with rail heists jumping 40% to roughly 65,000 incidents and $100 million in losses. Organized theft rings target trucking, warehousing, and rail networks around major hubs like Los Angeles, where stolen goods flow into resale markets faster than authorities can track them down.

Your Ocean Freight Rates Just Got a Surprise Discount

Ocean shipping rates just crashed to their lowest rates since late-2023: $1,431 per FEU from Asia to the U.S. West Coast, $3,015 to the East Coast, and both down 8% week over week. Two forces are driving this gift to your bottom line: carriers betting on Red Sea routes reopening and a trade fee fight that backfired spectacularly.

The Red Sea Gets Less Red Hot

A fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire has carriers sniffing around the Suez Canal again after two years of expensive detours around Africa. Some brave souls already started sending vessels through, though most want proof the shooting has actually stopped before fully committing their fleets. Once they do, your temperature-sensitive pharma shipments and fresh produce cut weeks off transit times while vessel capacity floods back into regular routes. Combined with U.S. import volumes dropping to mid-2023 levels and projected to keep falling through December, the trade floodgates could open up.

The Trade War Fee Fight Nobody Wins (But You Might)

While carriers test the Red Sea waters, last week’s U.S.-China port fee showdown handed shippers another win. Both countries launched tit-for-tat vessel charges that should have spiked your rates. But instead, carriers like Maersk and Cosco chose to eat the costs rather than lose customers already shopping around, thanks to that Red Sea capacity returning to market. They’re reshuffling fleets to dodge fee zones (affecting only 5% of port calls anyway) while promising no surcharges or service disruptions. Shipments essentially get subsidized while carriers absorb the costs of geopolitical theater.

Smucker’s $120 Million Bet: Why Your Twinkies Are Moving From Indianapolis to Georgia

J.M. Smucker is pouring $120 million into its Columbus, Georgia, Hostess plant while kissing its Indianapolis facility goodbye by 2026. And the reason has everything to do with a crumbling snack cake empire—two years after Smucker paid $5.6 billion for Hostess, it’s desperate to salvage what’s become a supply chain nightmare wrapped in cellophane.  

When Twinkies Meet Reality (& Ozempic)

The Columbus expansion promises shiny new buildings, renovated production lines, and 48 fresh jobs by 2027, but let’s call this what it really is: damage control dressed up as growth. Smucker has already swallowed nearly $2 billion in write-downs on Hostess and slashed the brand’s product lineup by 25%. Turns out, betting big on snack cakes right when everyone started using GLP-1 drugs for weight loss wasn’t exactly ideal timing. The Indianapolis plant closure tells you everything: Smucker is consolidating operations to stop the bleeding and is instead funneling production to Georgia—where it can squeeze every penny of efficiency from its wounded Twinkie operation.

Uncrustables Get All the Love

While Hostess limps along with its $120 million consolation prize, Smucker spent $1.1 billion building a third factory exclusively for Uncrustables, those wildly popular frozen PB&J pockets. The supply chain angle here couldn’t be more precise: Smucker is feeding the winners and starving the losers. Columbus gets enough investment to keep Ho Hos rolling off the line, but the real message hides behind facility manager Beaux Williamson’s corporate speak about “meeting consumer needs.” 

Lilly’s GLP-1 Pill Just Pulled a Comeback  

Eli Lilly’s stock took a beating in August when its much-hyped GLP-1 pill orforglipron posted underwhelming obesity results. But October 15 brought redemption through the side door: two Phase 3 diabetes trials that nailed every single end point.  

The Obesity Flop That Had Investors Running for the Exit

August’s data drop hurt. Orforglipron delivered a 12% body weight reduction, which sounds impressive until you stack it against Zepbound’s 21% or Novo Nordisk’s 15%. Sure, orforglipron offers the convenience of a pill you can pop without worrying about when you eat or drink. But obesity patients weren’t impressed enough to stick with it. High dropout rates sealed its fate, Wall Street analysts wrote off orforglipron’s obesity prospects, and the stock sell-off that followed proved investors agreed: no way could this pill compete with injectables.

Diabetes Trials Changed the Narrative

The same analysts who dismissed orforglipron’s obesity prospects are now singing a different tune after last week’s Achieve-2 and Achieve-5 results. Type 2 diabetes patients saw meaningful A1C reductions, weight loss, and cardiovascular improvements, with manageable side effects and discontinuation rates. William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh saw this coming months ago and predicted orforglipron would succeed in diabetes, where it struggled in obesity: diabetes patients have fewer treatment options and prioritize convenience over maximum weight loss. Perhaps that’s why Lilly is now fast-tracking regulatory filings for next year to position orforglipron as a “foundational treatment” for diabetes.

Mercedes-Benz Turned Its Supply Chain Into a Sustainable Boomerang

Mercedes decided there was a better way to run its supply chain than waiting for raw materials from distant mines. Instead, it built a smarter and more sustainable system where old cars become new cars, algorithms pick the greenest suppliers, and cloud software tracks it all.

The 96% Solution (Yes, Really 96%)

Mercedes’ Kuppenheim recycling facility pulls off what sounds impossible: recovering 96% of materials from dead batteries, scrapped metals, and retired parts. Think of it as a giant industrial stomach that digests old Mercedes vehicles and spits out usable resources. The plant breaks down end-of-life components with mechanical and hydrometallurgical processes that sound complicated but boil down to this: tear it apart, melt it down, extract everything valuable. Mercedes realized their junkyards held more treasure than any mine, so they built the machinery and a circular supply chain to prove it.

Algorithms Pick the Winners Now

Christian Netenjakob and his procurement team ditched gut feelings for Game Theory models that decide which suppliers get contracts. The rules stay transparent, the bidding stays fair, and sustainable practices get rewarded because the math says so. SAP RISE cloud migration lets them track supplier data in real time, which CIO Katrin Lehmann pushed hard for through consolidated platforms. Teams can now watch recycled materials flow through production alongside traditional sourcing, and it is all visible on dashboards. Mathematical decision-making meets environmental responsibility, and suppliers either adapt or lose bids. 

When Supply Chains Go Rogue, You Need Eyes Everywhere

This craziness of this week (and every other week, for that matter) proves that you can’t predict what will hit your supply chain next. But with real-time tracking and real-time shipment visibility on your side, you don’t have to predict. The time is now to stop guessing where your shipments are, or what’s happening to them.

Arm yourself with innovation: let Tive lead the way in transforming your supply chain operations. Embrace the future of logistics—get started with Tive today.