Nestable and Stackable Pallets: New Mexico

New Mexico, by road

Start with the map. I-40 crosses it east to west and I-25 runs north to south from Colorado to the Mexican border. The Interstates I-25, I-40 and I-10 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 a Ana (411) and Santa Fe (16), which is 7.5 percent of the state's 5,725. It shares a land border with Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

Warehousing in numbers

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

Reading the numbers

• a Ana County has 411 warehousing jobs, 7.2 percent of New Mexico's 5,725, the most in the state.
• Santa Fe County has 16 warehousing jobs, 0.3 percent of New Mexico's 5,725, 395 fewer than a Ana County.
• Dairy product manufacturing employs 1,732 people in New Mexico, 0.30 for every warehousing job.
• Food manufacturing employs 6,374 people in New Mexico, 1.11 for every warehousing job.
• New Mexico holds 0.3 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 333, spread over 66 establishments averaging 87 jobs each.
• Arizona has 52,054 warehousing jobs, 9.09 times the 5,725 in New Mexico.
• Colorado has 24,541 warehousing jobs, 4.29 times the 5,725 in New Mexico.
• Oklahoma has 19,669 warehousing jobs, 3.44 times the 5,725 in New Mexico.
• Texas has 175,579 warehousing jobs, 30.67 times the 5,725 in New Mexico.

Who ships pallets here

In New Mexico, dairy product manufacturing employs 1,732. Cold storage and frequent washing are the two things a dairy buyer asks the maker to confirm for the exact model. It tends to lean on stackable or nestable in a cold-friendly resin, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the maker's cold performance and wash guidance.

Dairy product manufacturing is the trade where New Mexico is most concentrated, at 2 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 66 warehouse establishments in New Mexico sent back 1,200 empty pallets in a week, that would be 79,200 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

Dunnage

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

Nest ratio

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

Commodity class

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

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.

ISPM 15

An international standard on treating and marking wood packaging material. Plastic is outside it.

TEU

Twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard way ports count containers. A 40 ft container is two TEUs.

Closed loop

A route where pallets return to the sender after delivery, so the empty trip is a standing cost.

Interstate corridor

A freight route named for its highway, together with the metros along it.