Pallet Styles for Food and beverage

What food plants ask

The buyer is usually a plant or sanitation manager. The questions come in order: can it be washed, does it hold the stack, and what documents come with it. A smooth moulded deck washes easily. Open decks drain, closed decks hold small product and keep debris from falling through; the deck guide sets out the choice.

Plastic pallets suit wet and cold areas because they do not absorb water. The maker's rating, not the material, is what governs the stack. Check the static load against the bottom pallet and the dynamic load against the forklift.

Paperwork

• FDA does not approve pallet models. A claim of approval is a warning sign.
• Ask for resin and colourant documents, and for cleaning guidance.
• A used pallet listing from Nelson Company is described as pharma and food safe but not approved for direct food contact, which is the careful wording to expect.
• If the pallet will touch food, say so to the maker in writing.

Beverage

Bottlers stack heavy and tall. A 56 x 44 in beverage pallet from PHS Plastic is rated 30,000 lb static, so the bottom pallet can carry a tall stack of cases, though dynamic and racking ratings are lower. Beverage plants run square-ish footprints for cans and glass, and ask whether the model takes a full stack without bowing.

A stack worked out

Take a stackable rated 12,000 lb static. The bottom pallet carries the pallets above it, so with each loaded pallet weighing 1,549 lb it can hold 7 above, a stack of 8. With 5,591 lb per pallet it can hold 2 above. This is a ceiling on a flat floor for a still stack, not a promise for a stack that moves or waits.

Trailers for your volume

Suppose 2,060 empty pallets come back in a month. At the maker figures on file that is 2 trailers of Rehrig Pacific heavy-duty nestables (1,200 each), 1 of PHS Plastic's EXP 100 (2,340 each) or 4 of a rackable (540 each). The table runs the same sum for 6 volumes, from 2,060 to 10,790.

Words on this page

Dunnage

Loose material used to support or secure cargo inside a trailer or container.

GMA pallet

The 48 by 40 inch North American standard, named for the Grocery Manufacturers Association that popularised it.

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.

Racking load

The weight a pallet holds when it rests on two rack beams with an open gap between them. It is usually the lowest rating and only exists for pallets built for racks.

Nest ratio

How many empty pallets fit in the height of one: pallet height divided by nest increment.

Nest increment

The extra height each additional empty pallet adds to a nested stack, measured in inches. A small increment means a short stack.

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Recycled content

The share of a pallet moulded from reground plastic. Makers print it as a range, often by colour.