Nestable and Stackable Pallets: North Dakota

North Dakota, by road

I-94 crosses it east to west and I-29 runs down the Red River side, with oil-field and farm freight sharing the road. For a plastic pallet buyer in North Dakota, the geography sets the route and the route sets the empty return: I-94 and I-29 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 Cass (1,186), Grand Forks (73) and Traill (28), which is 89.5 percent of the state's 1,438. It shares a land border with Minnesota, South Dakota and Montana.

Warehousing in numbers

Refrigerated space matters because a freezer is hard on plastic; the cold guide says what to ask for. North Dakota held 10 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse capacity on October 1, 2025.

Reading the numbers

• Cass County has 1,186 warehousing jobs, 82.5 percent of North Dakota's 1,438, the most in the state.
• Grand Forks County has 73 warehousing jobs, 5.1 percent of North Dakota's 1,438, 1,113 fewer than Cass County.
• Traill County has 28 warehousing jobs, 1.9 percent of North Dakota's 1,438, 1,158 fewer than Cass County.
• Food manufacturing employs 5,564 people in North Dakota, 3.87 for every warehousing job.
• Grocery and related product wholesale employs 1,946 people in North Dakota, 1.35 for every warehousing job.
• North Dakota holds 0.08 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 1250, spread over 61 establishments averaging 24 jobs each.
• Minnesota has 17,921 warehousing jobs, 12.46 times the 1,438 in North Dakota.
• South Dakota has 3,269 warehousing jobs, 2.27 times the 1,438 in North Dakota.
• Montana has 428 warehousing jobs, 0.30 times the 1,438 in North Dakota.

Who ships pallets here

In North Dakota, food manufacturing employs 5,564. The buyer here is usually a plant or sanitation manager, and the questions are cleaning, deck type and what paperwork comes with the model. It tends to lean on nestable or stackable that washes down, open or closed deck by product, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about resin and colourant documentation, since FDA does not approve pallet models.

Food manufacturing is the trade where North Dakota is most concentrated, at 1.2 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 61 warehouse establishments in North Dakota sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 30,500 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

Words on this page

QCEW

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

Establishment

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

Pallet jack

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

3PL

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

ISPM 15

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

Dynamic load

The weight a pallet holds while it is moved by a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor. It is lower than static because motion adds shock.

Beam span

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

Nest increment

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

Cruciform base

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