Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Florida

Florida, by road

Freight comes in through Jacksonville, Miami, Port Everglades and Tampa and runs the peninsula on I-95, I-75 and the Turnpike. For a plastic pallet buyer in Florida, the geography sets the route and the route sets the empty return: I-95, I-75, I-10 and I-4 carry most of what leaves, and every empty pallet that comes back has to ride the same road.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Polk (19,862), Duval (15,372) and Miami-Dade (13,042), which is 45.8 percent of the state's 105,401. It shares a land border with Georgia and Alabama.

Warehousing in numbers

Refrigerated space matters because a freezer is hard on plastic; the cold guide says what to ask for. Florida held 254 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse capacity on October 1, 2025.

Reading the numbers

• Polk County has 19,862 warehousing jobs, 18.8 percent of Florida's 105,401, the most in the state.
• Duval County has 15,372 warehousing jobs, 14.6 percent of Florida's 105,401, 4,490 fewer than Polk County.
• Miami-Dade County has 13,042 warehousing jobs, 12.4 percent of Florida's 105,401, 6,820 fewer than Polk County.
• Warehousing and storage employs 105,401 people in Florida, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Grocery and related product wholesale employs 63,967 people in Florida, 0.61 for every warehousing job.
• Florida holds 5.54 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 18, spread over 1,249 establishments averaging 84 jobs each.
• Miami accounts for 22,104 warehousing jobs, 21.0 percent of Florida's.
• Orlando accounts for 13,928 warehousing jobs, 13.2 percent of Florida's.
• Jacksonville accounts for 15,384 warehousing jobs, 14.6 percent of Florida's.
• Tampa accounts for 13,205 warehousing jobs, 12.5 percent of Florida's.
• Georgia has 84,730 warehousing jobs, 0.80 times the 105,401 in Florida.
• Alabama has 21,880 warehousing jobs, 0.21 times the 105,401 in Florida.

Who ships pallets here

In Florida, warehousing and storage employs 105,401. Racks decide the order of questions: a pallet that sits on beams needs a racking load that matches the span, and a floor-stacked pallet needs a static load that matches the bottom of the stack. It tends to lean on rackable where the pallet lives on beams, stackable for block stacking, nestable for the empties that go back, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the racking load, and the beam span it was rated on.

Warehousing and storage is the trade where Florida is most concentrated, at 0.8 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 1,249 warehouse establishments in Florida sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 624,500 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Metros in Florida with their own page: Miami, Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa.

Words on this page

Cross-docking

Moving freight from an inbound truck to an outbound one with little or no storage between.

Creep

Slow, permanent bending of plastic under a steady load. A pallet can hold a load for an hour and bow under it after a month.

Nest ratio

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

3PL

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

Location quotient

A place's share of employment in a trade divided by the national share. Above 1 means the trade is more concentrated there than average.

Dunnage

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

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.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.