Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Virginia

Virginia, by road

Virginia is a place where hampton Roads has the port, and I-81 runs the length of the Shenandoah Valley behind it. Pallets here follow I-95, I-81, I-64, I-66 and I-85, and the distance they travel empty is the cost a nestable cuts.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Suffolk city (6,757), Chesapeake city (3,851) and Chesterfield (3,728), which is 28.0 percent of the state's 51,123. It shares a land border with Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

Warehousing in numbers

Refrigerated space matters because a freezer is hard on plastic; the cold guide says what to ask for. Virginia held 72 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse capacity on October 1, 2025.

Reading the numbers

• Suffolk city County has 6,757 warehousing jobs, 13.2 percent of Virginia's 51,123, the most in the state.
• Chesapeake city County has 3,851 warehousing jobs, 7.5 percent of Virginia's 51,123, 2,906 fewer than Suffolk city County.
• Chesterfield County has 3,728 warehousing jobs, 7.3 percent of Virginia's 51,123, 3,029 fewer than Suffolk city County.
• Warehousing and storage employs 51,123 people in Virginia, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Food manufacturing employs 32,684 people in Virginia, 0.64 for every warehousing job.
• Virginia holds 2.69 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 37, spread over 529 establishments averaging 97 jobs each.
• Maryland has 29,966 warehousing jobs, 0.59 times the 51,123 in Virginia.
• West Virginia has 3,631 warehousing jobs, 0.07 times the 51,123 in Virginia.
• Kentucky has 38,281 warehousing jobs, 0.75 times the 51,123 in Virginia.
• Tennessee has 53,427 warehousing jobs, 1.05 times the 51,123 in Virginia.

Who ships pallets here

In Virginia, warehousing and storage employs 51,123. 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 Virginia is most concentrated, at 1.1 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 529 warehouse establishments in Virginia sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 423,200 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

QCEW

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

ZIP Code Business Patterns

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

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.

Pallet pooling

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

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.

Edge rack

A rack arrangement where the pallet rests on the edges of the beams. It is the common test case for a racking rating.

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.

Gross cubic feet

The total volume of a refrigerated warehouse. Usable space is smaller once aisles and equipment are subtracted.

TEU

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