Pallets for food and beverage in the Mid-South

BOX 01Who is here

Horn Lake has a plant that makes food coatings, seasonings and ingredients, listed on the city's Wikipedia page. It is context for the sort of production in the metro. The pallet picture around it is bagged goods on 48 x 40 stringers.

Beverage freight often uses 42 x 42, one of the six footprints common on Mid-South docks.

BOX 02Damp is the main enemy

Pallets that sit in a humid Mid-South summer can grow mold, and loading them while hot can make it worse. See Pallet Enterprise for the general principles and keeping pallets dry for the local version.

• Reject any pallet with a musty smell.
• Keep outbound stock off wet ground.
• Flag pallets that held liquids or sticky goods.

BOX 03What to put in the request

The size, the grade, whether the pallets touched food directly and whether any are wet. A dry Grade A pile is the strongest thing to offer; see sell. For a pile you want cleared, use pallet removal.

BOX 04Spills and stains

Food and drink leave marks that other freight does not. A pallet under a case of syrup or juice picks up a sticky patch; one under oil picks up a dark stain. Both are reasons a clean-stock buyer says no, and both are worth naming in a request.

A sticky or oily pallet may still serve a buyer who ships hardware or tools.

BOX 05Beverage freight and the square pallet

Some beverage producers ship on 42 x 42 pallets, and a Memphis dock that takes their freight collects them. They are sound and clean when the freight is heavy and the handling is careful. They sell slowly in a general market, so a separate count is the honest way to describe them. See 42 x 42 for the footprint.

BOX 06Keeping a food dock's pile clean

A food dock can reduce its shed by keeping pallets off the ground, under cover and away from spills. Stacks on a clean dock floor stay Grade A far longer than stacks left in a yard. If a dock does this, say so in the request: it makes the pile more valuable.

BOX 07Cold storage and damp wood

Cold storage warehouses see pallets go in and out of freezers, and condensation soaks the wood. Such pallets are usually fine for a plant that stacks cans but not for one that stores paper. A request from a cold dock should say so.

FAQStraight answers