Industries

Six industries with six different definitions of a good pallet.

Q: Why can a foundry take a pallet a bakery would reject?

Because odour, staining and moisture are irrelevant to the structural grade and fatal in a food plant. A pallet that smells of solvent is fine under a casting and is how you lose a food account permanently, so stock bound for food work gets an additional sort on top of the structural grade.

A bakery and a foundry want opposite things from the same rectangle of wood. We keep separate grading rules for each, because sending a food plant a pallet that smells of solvent is how you lose an account permanently.

Warehouse aisle lined on both sides with tall stacks of used wood pallets on a polished concrete floor, roof lights overhead — Inside the buildingThe sort aisle at half past seven. Graded stock on the left, waiting to be worked on the right.

Tell us your sector

Different industries get different sorting rules here. Name yours in the message field and the quote will reflect it.

Written quotes, usually inside one business day
Loads from 100 pallets to full 53' trailers
We buy as readily as we sell — tell us which way it flows

First name *

Last name *

Email *

We reply by email, so this needs to be a working address.

Phone *

US or Canadian 10-digit number. Formats itself as you type.

Company

City

State / Province

Two-letter code or full name.

Postal code *

US ZIP (43217) or Canadian postal code (K1A 0B1).

Select service *

Product type *

Quantity *

Whole units, digits only.

Grade

Message

No phone number required from us — we quote by email so you have the numbers in writing.

Warehouse interior with pallets sorted by type — natural wood, blue pooled units, black plastic and EPAL stamped stacks

Segregation

Sorted by type, not by convenience. Pooled units go back to the pool; plastic runs a separate stream entirely.

Where the rules diverge

The specification changes more than the price does.

Across these six sectors the unit price of a 48×40 varies by maybe fifteen per cent. The acceptance criteria vary enormously.

Sector01

Food & Beverage

In every other industry a pallet is a platform.

Open Sector02

Agriculture & Greenhouse

Agriculture has a pallet problem that no other industry shares: you need forty thousand of them in six weeks, and then none for eight months..

Open Sector03

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is where cost per cycle beats cost per unit by the widest margin, and where a repair programme is worth more than a purchasing negotiation..

Open Sector04

Retail & Distribution

The only sector where a pallet has to look good.

Open Sector05

Chemical & Industrial

Four full drums is nearly two and a half thousand pounds resting on four steel rings.

Open Sector06

Construction & Building

Nobody returns a pallet from a building site.

Open

At a glance

What each sector actually insists on.

Sector	Usual grade	Footprint	The non-negotiable	Returns?
Food & beverage	Grade A	48 × 40	Odour, moisture and known provenance	Often
Agriculture	Grade B / collars	48 × 40, bins	Seasonal availability	Sometimes
Manufacturing	Grade A	48 × 40, 48 × 45	Dimensional consistency	Always
Retail & distribution	Display grade	48 × 40, 36 × 36, half	Appearance	Rarely
Chemical & industrial	Heavy deck	48 × 48, 42 × 42	Concentrated load capacity	Sometimes
Construction	Heavy-deck B	48 × 40, custom	Cheapest thing that survives one trip	Never

Questions

Specifying a pallet by sector.

Which six industries do you write separate grading rules for?

Food and beverage, agriculture and greenhouse, manufacturing, retail and distribution, chemical and industrial, and construction and building. Each has its own page setting out the usual grade, the footprint we send and the one criterion that gets a load rejected.

Does the price change much from one sector to the next?

Less than people expect. Across these six sectors the unit price of a 48×40 varies by maybe fifteen per cent. What varies enormously is the acceptance criteria — the sort, not the pallet. A display-graded pallet and a construction pallet can come off the same incoming trailer.

Why can a foundry take a pallet a bakery would reject?

Because odour, staining and moisture are structural-grade irrelevant and food-plant fatal. A pallet that smells of solvent is fine under a casting and is how you lose a food account permanently, so stock bound for food work gets an additional sort on top of the structural grade.

My sector is not one of the six. Can you still supply me?

Yes. These six are simply the ones we have handled long enough to write the rules down. Everything leaves the same sort deck and the same size library; tell us what the pallet carries and where it goes and we will set the sorting rule with you.

How do I make sure a quote uses my sector's rules?

Name the sector in the message field. It changes what we pull, not just what we charge, and it is the single most useful line you can give us. Quotes come back within one business day, priced delivered rather than FOB.