Diesel and jet fuel prices spike supply chain costs

For the first time in over three years, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in an attempt to combat stubborn inflation.

But Zac Rogers, an associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University, told CFO Brew that he wasn’t sure lifting rates would help inflation right now.

“Interest rates really only impact demand. They don’t do that much to impact supply because what we’re having, our real problem, is we have an energy shortage and we also have a capacity shortage,” Rogers said. In particular, “We don’t have enough truck fleets right now.”

Skyrocketing fuel costs. But “what I’ve been paying attention to is diesel and jet fuel, because those are the two pieces that underlie everything,” Rogers said. The price of Brent crude oil broke $100 on September 9, and Rogers calculated that the price of diesel, as of September 7, was up 56% since the start of the war in Iran the week of February 23. Compared to 2025, higher diesel prices have cost the American economy over $97 billion per week this year, Rogers said.

In the air, the weekly average price of jet fuel was up 106% YoY as of the week ending September 25, according to the International Air Transport Association.

“If you’re a CFO of an SME, especially in retail, you’re having to make these commitments to, ‘Let’s bring in stuff, we’re going to have a big holiday shopping season.’…So you’re trying to predict the future,” Rogers said.

Creating predictability. Volleyball footwear and apparel brand Avoli has been able to build predictability into its supply chain to combat frequent fluctuations in tariffs, shipping, and freight costs, co-founder Rick Anguilla told CFO Brew. Ocean freight rates, he said, are typically more predictable and less likely to fluctuate.

“If you ocean freight product over from Asia, generally, the cost is low single digits, like 2% [or] 3%. If you air freight, you have no idea; it could be low double digits. It could be 20[%],” Anguilla said. “For a lot of companies, that delta is the difference between making a profit and not making a profit.”

A “secret weapon” for Avoli is getting out ahead of demand, Anguilla said.

“When we bring shoes in, a lot of times they’ll sell out within two to three days. We had a day in July where we sold 1,000 pairs of shoes in six minutes. Bananas, right? So when that shoe gets sold out, we have an incredible number of consumers who hit ‘Size nine, notify me when back in stock,’ [and] that’s our back in stock metric,” Anguilla said.

“When the product comes into the States, we essentially just send out an email that says, ‘the size nine-and-a-half in supersonic pink that you were looking for is in stock’—and we get a huge amount of people just ordering off that,” he said. “It is such a good snapshot of demand…And what that enables you to do is put them on a boat, versus put them on a plane, and you’re saving a ton of money.”

Load in. In early August, the National Retail Federation’s supply chain and customs policy VP, Jonathan Gold, said in a press release that “We had an early peak season this year as retailers brought in merchandise ahead of tariff changes in late July and responded to other uncertainties in the supply chain like the ongoing disruption brought by the conflict in Iran.”

Said Rogers: “In theory it should be, ‘Let’s load up as much inventory as we can to squeeze as much out of fuel, but also tariffs, and so paying all this up front is hard on the other side.”