Aurora and McLane move refrigerated food freight to driverless trucks

Aurora and McLane move refrigerated food freight to driverless trucks

6 May 2026: McLane Company, the foodservice distributor owned by Berkshire Hathaway, has approved driverless operation of Aurora trucks on the Dallas-to-Houston route, carrying refrigerated goods for the US restaurant supply chain. The two companies say the move follows a supervised pilot that logged more than 280,000 autonomous miles in Texas.

Three years of supervised hauls

The pilot began in 2023 with a safety driver on board. By the time of the announcement Aurora and McLane had completed 1,400 loads, and the release says every one of them arrived on time. McLane has now approved driverless operation, in which the Aurora Driver does the work alone. The Aurora Driver is an SAE Level 4 self-driving system, first deployed in long-haul trucking.

A schedule built around refrigeration

The driverless service on Dallas-Houston runs two round trips a day, seven days a week. The loads are refrigerated, and the release says autonomous trucks can run them around the clock, citing labour constraints and more consistent transit schedules as benefits.

The split of work is defined. Aurora handles the long-haul middle mile on the highway, and McLane's own drivers do the local delivery at each end. The companies plan to keep that hybrid model as they deepen their work together.

From one lane to the Sun Belt

The plan is to open new routes between McLane distribution centres across the US Sun Belt by the end of 2026. The release makes that expansion subject to definitive documentation and binding orders, so only the Dallas-Houston approval is in place today.

Aurora's network was already larger than one lane when the deal was announced. The company launched commercial driverless trucking between Dallas and Houston at the start of May 2025, after closing its safety case, and added a 600-mile lane from Fort Worth to El Paso in October 2025. By its release of 22 July 2026, Aurora described a network of 10 driverless routes in the US Sun Belt and said the Aurora Driver had completed nearly 440,000 driverless miles as of the end of June.

What the trucks are built on

That July release introduced second-generation driverless trucks based on the International LT Series, using next-generation hardware designed to last one million miles. Roush, a product development supplier, installs the redundant systems and integrates the hardware at a production facility dedicated to Aurora, and the companies say Roush is positioned to reach an annual run-rate of 1,000 Aurora trucks later in 2026. Aurora said it closed its safety case for the new truck and hardware before launch.

The two companies

McLane was founded in 1894 and is based in Temple, Texas. It has more than 80 distribution centres and more than 25,000 employees, and delivers to nearly every US zip code. The release describes it as a distributor to chain restaurants, convenience stores and mass merchants.

Aurora trades on Nasdaq as AUR. Ossa Fisher, Aurora's president, said: "We're excited to enter the next chapter with McLane and transform the American food supply chain with autonomous trucks." Susan Adzick, president of McLane Restaurant, said: "Autonomous technology helps us drive greater efficiency across the supply chain."

Sources

• Aurora Innovation: Aurora and McLane Company partner to bring autonomous trucks to U.S. restaurant supply chain, 6 May 2026
• Aurora Innovation: Aurora launches second-generation driverless trucks in U.S. to meet customer demand, 22 July 2026
• Aurora Innovation: Aurora begins commercial driverless trucking in Texas, 1 May 2025
• Aurora Innovation: Aurora expands driverless trucking service from Fort Worth to El Paso, 28 October 2025