Nestable and Stackable Pallets: New Hampshire

New Hampshire, by road

Start with the map. The state is small, with I-93 down the middle and a short coastal stretch of I-95. The Interstates I-93, I-95, I-89 and I-293 set the haul lengths, and the longer the haul, the more an empty stack's height matters.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Rockingham (1,838), Merrimack (497) and Strafford (316), which is 80.7 percent of the state's 3,283. It shares a land border with Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Warehousing in numbers

New Hampshire reports no refrigerated warehouse capacity separately in the USDA table we used, so the cold question depends on the individual customer.

Reading the numbers

• Rockingham County has 1,838 warehousing jobs, 56.0 percent of New Hampshire's 3,283, the most in the state.
• Merrimack County has 497 warehousing jobs, 15.1 percent of New Hampshire's 3,283, 1,341 fewer than Rockingham County.
• Strafford County has 316 warehousing jobs, 9.6 percent of New Hampshire's 3,283, 1,522 fewer than Rockingham County.
• Plastics product manufacturing employs 4,093 people in New Hampshire, 1.25 for every warehousing job.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 2,222 people in New Hampshire, 0.68 for every warehousing job.
• New Hampshire holds 0.17 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 588, spread over 96 establishments averaging 34 jobs each.
• Maine has 3,774 warehousing jobs, 1.15 times the 3,283 in New Hampshire.
• Vermont has 1,057 warehousing jobs, 0.32 times the 3,283 in New Hampshire.
• Massachusetts has 20,695 warehousing jobs, 6.30 times the 3,283 in New Hampshire.

Who ships pallets here

In New Hampshire, plastics product manufacturing employs 4,093. These buyers compare resin and deck design directly, and ask for the nest figure so they can price the empty return. It tends to lean on nestable or stackable in the plant's own footprint, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about static load and whether the model is built for conveyors or automation.

Plastics product manufacturing is the trade where New Hampshire is most concentrated, at 1.6 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 96 warehouse establishments in New Hampshire sent back 1,200 empty pallets in a week, that would be 115,200 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

Words on this page

Establishment

A single physical location where a business operates, such as one warehouse. A company with ten warehouses has ten establishments.

Commodity class

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

Pallet pooling

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

2-way entry

A pallet that can be lifted from only two opposite sides.

Footprint

The length and width of a pallet deck. It is chosen to fit the container, the drum, the bag or the receiving rack.

ZIP Code Business Patterns

A Census Bureau series that counts establishments by ZIP code and industry.

Bulk bag

A large woven bag, often sold as a Super Sack, that holds a ton or so of powder or granules and sits on a square pallet.

Last mile

The final leg of a delivery, from a local depot to the customer.

Beam span

The open gap between two rack beams. The longer the span, the lower the load the pallet can carry across it.