Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Salinas

Salinas, by road

The Salinas Valley grows much of the state's lettuce and vegetables, and US-101 carries the cartons out. The Salinas area sits in California, and the freight pattern follows the roads above.

Beverage manufacturing is where this area is most concentrated, at 2.4 times the national share of employment. The area reaches into Monterey county.

ZIP codes with the most warehouses

The five largest ZIP codes hold 13 establishments between them. Salinas (93901) leads with 9, 69.2 percent of the five.

Reading the numbers

• Castroville (95012) has 5 fewer warehousing establishments than Salinas (93901), 4 against 9.
• ZIP 93901 in Salinas ranks number 1 of the five, with 9 warehousing establishments, 69.2 percent of their combined total and 2.25 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 95012 in Castroville ranks number 2 of the five, with 4 warehousing establishments, 30.8 percent of their combined total and 1.00 times the smallest of them.
• Beverage manufacturing employs 937 in the area, 3.14 for every warehousing job.
• Grocery and related product wholesale employs 2,256 in the area, 7.57 for every warehousing job.
• California's beverage manufacturing employment, 63,604, is 213.44 times the Salinas area's warehousing jobs.
• California's fruit and vegetable preserving employment, 27,518, is 92.34 times the Salinas area's warehousing jobs.
• Los Angeles, also in California, has 27,225 warehousing jobs, 91.36 times Salinas's.
• Inland Empire, also in California, has 118,368 warehousing jobs, 397.21 times Salinas's.
• Fresno, also in California, has 5,006 warehousing jobs, 16.80 times Salinas's.

Who ships pallets here

In Salinas, beverage manufacturing employs 937. Bottlers stack heavy and tall, so static load on the bottom pallet is the number that matters, and one maker lists a 56 x 44 beverage pallet at 30,000 lb static. It tends to lean on stackable beverage pallets, with 56 x 44 in where the line is set up for it, usually in 56 x 44 in beverage, or 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the static load of the bottom pallet in a full stack.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 13 warehouses in its five largest ZIP codes in Salinas sent back 1,200 empty pallets in a week, that would be 15,600 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

In its state

Among the 6 metros of California that have a page here, Salinas ranks number 6 by warehousing jobs.

Salinas holds 0.1 percent of California's 236,923 private warehousing jobs. See the California page for the whole state.

Other metros in California with their own page: Los Angeles, Inland Empire, Fresno, Stockton and San Francisco-Oakland.

Words on this page

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.

Drayage

The short haul of a container between a port or rail ramp and a warehouse.

Recycled content

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

Slip sheet

A thin sheet of plastic or fibreboard used under a load in place of a pallet, handled by a push-pull attachment.

Commodity class

A fire-protection category for stored goods and their pallets, used to design sprinkler systems.

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

Pallet pooling

A rental model where a company owns the pallets and moves them between customers, instead of each customer buying its own.

Dock door

The opening where a trailer backs to a building so pallets can be loaded and unloaded.