Nestable and Stackable Pallets: St. Louis

St. Louis, by road

Geography first: i-44, I-55, I-64 and I-70 meet at the Mississippi River, with warehouses on both the Missouri and Illinois banks. That is the setting for a pallet buyer in the St. Louis area of Missouri.

Chemical manufacturing is where this area is most concentrated, at 1.6 times the national share of employment. The area reaches into Bond, Calhoun, Clinton, Jersey, Macoupin and Madison... county.

Counties

ZIP codes with the most warehouses

The five largest ZIP codes hold 76 establishments between them. Hazelwood (63042) leads with 32, 42.1 percent of the five.

Reading the numbers

• Madison County has 7,612 warehousing jobs, 45.1 percent of the 16,879 in the St. Louis area.
• Edwardsville (62025) has 15 fewer warehousing establishments than Hazelwood (63042), 17 against 32.
• Granite City (62040) has 22 fewer warehousing establishments than Hazelwood (63042), 10 against 32.
• Bridgeton (63044) has 23 fewer warehousing establishments than Hazelwood (63042), 9 against 32.
• Saint Louis (63147) has 24 fewer warehousing establishments than Hazelwood (63042), 8 against 32.
• Madison County's 7,612 is 28.5 percent of all 26,726 warehousing jobs in Missouri.
• ZIP 63042 in Hazelwood ranks number 1 of the five, with 32 warehousing establishments, 42.1 percent of their combined total and 4.00 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 62025 in Edwardsville ranks number 2 of the five, with 17 warehousing establishments, 22.4 percent of their combined total and 2.13 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 62040 in Granite City ranks number 3 of the five, with 10 warehousing establishments, 13.2 percent of their combined total and 1.25 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 63044 in Bridgeton ranks number 4 of the five, with 9 warehousing establishments, 11.8 percent of their combined total and 1.13 times the smallest of them.
• ZIP 63147 in Saint Louis ranks number 5 of the five, with 8 warehousing establishments, 10.5 percent of their combined total and 1.00 times the smallest of them.
• Chemical manufacturing employs 12,524 in the area (partial), 0.74 for every warehousing job.
• Warehousing and storage employs 16,879 in the area (partial), 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Missouri's motor vehicle manufacturing employment, 13,274, is 0.79 times the St. Louis area's warehousing jobs.
• Missouri's dairy product manufacturing employment, 6,107, is 0.36 times the St. Louis area's warehousing jobs.
• Missouri's meat and poultry processing employment, 16,925, is 1.00 times the St. Louis area's warehousing jobs.
• Missouri's fruit and vegetable preserving employment, 4,877, is 0.29 times the St. Louis area's warehousing jobs.
• Kansas City, also in Missouri, has 20,676 warehousing jobs, 1.22 times St. Louis's.

Who ships pallets here

In St. Louis, chemical manufacturing employs 12,524 (a partial count). Chemical shippers ask about footprint first because the container decides it, then about static load and fire listing for the storage area. It tends to lean on stackable heavy-duty pallets sized to the drum or bag, usually in 45 x 45 in (CP9) or 48 x 48 in for drums, and to ask about the static load with the container on it, and any fire listing.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 76 warehouses in its five largest ZIP codes in St. Louis sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 38,000 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 2 metros of Missouri that have a page here, St. Louis ranks number 2 by warehousing jobs.

St. Louis holds 63.2 percent of Missouri's 26,726 private warehousing jobs. See the Missouri page for the whole state.

Other metros in Missouri with their own page: Kansas City.

Words on this page

Euro pallet

A 1200 by 800 millimetre pallet, about 48 by 31.5 inches, widely used in Europe.

Cube utilisation

How well loaded freight fills the volume of a trailer or container. Taller or wider-than-floor pallets waste cube.

Dock door

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

3PL

A third-party logistics company that stores and ships goods for other businesses.

Drayage

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

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.

Gross cubic feet

The total volume of a refrigerated warehouse. Usable space is smaller once aisles and equipment are subtracted.

Polypropylene

Another common pallet resin, lighter and stiffer than some others, with its own behaviour in the cold.