Nestable and Stackable Pallets: North Carolina

North Carolina, by road

North Carolina is a place where i-85 runs through Charlotte and the Piedmont, I-95 through the east, and I-40 links the two to the coast. Pallets here follow I-85, I-95, I-40 and I-77, and the distance they travel empty is the cost a nestable cuts.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Mecklenburg (12,290), Wake (6,635) and Guilford (4,160), which is 42.3 percent of the state's 54,551. It shares a land border with Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina.

Warehousing in numbers

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

Reading the numbers

• Mecklenburg County has 12,290 warehousing jobs, 22.5 percent of North Carolina's 54,551, the most in the state.
• Wake County has 6,635 warehousing jobs, 12.2 percent of North Carolina's 54,551, 5,655 fewer than Mecklenburg County.
• Guilford County has 4,160 warehousing jobs, 7.6 percent of North Carolina's 54,551, 8,130 fewer than Mecklenburg County.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 26,998 people in North Carolina, 0.49 for every warehousing job.
• Meat and poultry processing employs 35,715 people in North Carolina, 0.65 for every warehousing job.
• Chemical manufacturing employs 47,758 people in North Carolina, 0.88 for every warehousing job.
• Plastics product manufacturing employs 27,700 people in North Carolina, 0.51 for every warehousing job.
• North Carolina holds 2.87 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 35, spread over 590 establishments averaging 92 jobs each.
• Charlotte accounts for 18,437 warehousing jobs, 33.8 percent of North Carolina's.
• Virginia has 51,123 warehousing jobs, 0.94 times the 54,551 in North Carolina.
• Tennessee has 53,427 warehousing jobs, 0.98 times the 54,551 in North Carolina.
• Georgia has 84,730 warehousing jobs, 1.55 times the 54,551 in North Carolina.
• South Carolina has 27,150 warehousing jobs, 0.50 times the 54,551 in North Carolina.

Who ships pallets here

In North Carolina, pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 26,998. Pharma plants care about clean surfaces and a paper trail. A used 48 x 40 model one maker lists is described as pharma and food safe but not approved for direct food contact, which is the kind of careful wording to expect. It tends to lean on clean, washable stackable or nestable with a paperwork trail, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about resin and colourant documents and the maker's cleaning guidance.

Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is the trade where North Carolina is most concentrated, at 2.4 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 590 warehouse establishments in North Carolina sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 472,000 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Metros in North Carolina with their own page: Charlotte.

Words on this page

Cross-docking

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

Intermodal

Freight that changes between truck, rail and ship in the same container.

QCEW

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

Pallet jack

A hand or powered truck with two forks, used to move a pallet short distances.

Cruciform base

A base shaped like a plus sign under the pallet, which gives a stable footprint and slides well on conveyors.

Establishment

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

Nest increment

The extra height each additional empty pallet adds to a nested stack, measured in inches. A small increment means a short stack.

Beam span

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

Interstate corridor

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