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Case study / beverage co-packer

Stopped buying new, breakage went down

A Willamette Valley beverage co-packer running 2,400 pallets a month moved from new hardwood to Grade A recycled fir. Freight weight fell, damage fell, and the packaging line never noticed.

A box trailer loaded floor to ceiling with stacked pallets, doors open at the dockIn stock
Outbound load, paired trip

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Portland, OR · email only, no phone

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US or Canada, 10 digits — format (503) 274-0900.
US ZIP or Canadian code.
Type freely or pick from the list.
Whole number — per month or one-time.

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The customer canned and bottled for a dozen regional brands and had bought new hardwood pallets for eleven years, on the reasonable assumption that heavier meant stronger. Their damage rate on palletised outbound freight sat just under 1%, which they had accepted as normal.

Two things were happening at once. The hardwood pallets weighed 55 lb against the 35 lb of an equivalent fir unit, and the supplier's quality had drifted — protruding fasteners on roughly one unit in forty were tearing shrink wrap and case corners.

−47%packaging spend per unitGrade A recycled vs new hardwood
−12 tmonthly freight weight20 lb × 2,400 units
−58%palletised damage rate0.94% to 0.39% over two quarters
317 tCO₂e avoided annuallymodelled at 11 kg per reuse

How it runs

Step by step

Nothing here is a black box. If a step does not fit your site, say so and we will redesign it rather than pretend.

  1. 01

    One truckload test

    480 Grade A recycled units ran alongside the existing new pool for three weeks, with one in ten measured on arrival by their own receiving team.

  2. 02

    Spec written down

    We published the tolerance they would hold us to: 48×40 ±1/4", square to 1/4", no protruding fasteners, 2,200 lb racked.

  3. 03

    Quarterly program

    2,400 units a month at a fixed price, reserved under their name, with ±20% flex for seasonal canning runs.

  4. 04

    Closed loop added

    Our delivery truck began leaving with their broken units and cores, halving truck movements on the lane.

The fine print

Terms, limits and honest caveats

Sector
Beverage co-packing, Willamette Valley
Volume
2,400 pallets per month, seasonal peaks to 3,100
Previous supply
New hardwood 48×40, single supplier, spot pricing
Now
Grade A recycled fir, quarterly fixed price, closed-loop collection
Time to switch
Six weeks from first test load to full program
Unexpected benefit
Lighter pallets reduced manual handling complaints on the hand-stack line

Why the damage rate fell rather than rose

Everybody expects recycled wood to damage more freight. In this case the opposite happened, for a mundane reason: we grade for protruding fasteners and their new-pallet supplier did not. A nail standing an eighth of an inch proud of a top deck will tear shrink wrap every single time, and new pallets are not immune to it.

The second factor was squareness. Their hardwood units were arriving out of square by up to three quarters of an inch, which made four-high stacks lean. Our published tolerance is a quarter inch on the diagonal, checked on a jig.

The freight line nobody had audited

Twenty pounds per pallet across 2,400 units a month is 48,000 lb — roughly twelve tonnes of wood being shipped every month that carried nothing. On their weight-sensitive lanes that converted directly into trailer capacity.

No procurement system flagged it, because tare weight does not appear on a unit-price comparison. It took a scale ticket and a calculator.

Process

How stopped buying new order actually happens

No sales team, no discovery call, no CRM sequence. We have no telephone, so everything below happens in writing and stays searchable afterwards.

  • What we need: footprint, grade, count, ZIP, and how the pallet is handled.
  • Nice to have: a photo, your dock height, whether you run forklifts or jacks.
  • Not needed: a purchase order, an account, or a phone conversation.
  1. 01

    You send the form

    Every form on this site is the same form and reaches the same yard team. Required fields are validated as you type, so a mistyped ZIP or email is caught before anything is sent.

  2. 02

    We check today's stock

    Used pallet availability moves daily. You get a real count and a real date rather than a list price that was true last quarter.

  3. 03

    A written quote, within one business day

    Price per unit by grade, freight itemised separately, delivery window, and any honest reservations we have about the specification you asked for.

  4. 04

    Delivery, count, paperwork

    Signed count sheet on arrival, weight ticket where relevant, and a diversion certificate for anything we collect for recycling.

PalletLinker published ratings. Quoted back to you in writing on every order. Racked figures assume edge support only, evenly distributed, no overhang.
PalletStaticDynamicRackedTareStack height
48×40 GMA Grade A8,000 lb2,800 lb2,200 lb33–37 lb3 high loaded
48×40 GMA Grade B6,500 lb2,200 lb1,500 lb30–36 lb2 high loaded
48×40 block, 4-way9,000 lb2,500 lb2,400 lb37–41 lb4 high loaded
EPAL / Euro 18,800 lb3,300 lb2,200 lb48–55 lb3 high loaded
42×42 beverage7,500 lb2,600 lb1,900 lb35–39 lb3 high loaded
48×48 drum9,500 lb3,000 lb2,300 lb40–45 lb2 high loaded
36×36 nursery deck4,500 lb1,400 lb900 lb24–28 lb2 high loaded
48×20 half pallet3,000 lb1,400 lb900 lb18–22 lb2 high loaded
Remanufactured 48×406,000 lb2,000 lb1,200 lb30–38 lb2 high loaded
Heavy skid 96×4816,000 lb12,000 lbNot for racking95–130 lb1 high
“We stopped buying new three years ago and our breakage rate went down. That still surprises people.”
Marisol Vega — Logistics lead, Willamette beverage co-packer
  • 01

    Published specifications

    Grade definitions, dimensional tolerances and racked load ratings in writing. Most yards will not publish a racked figure at all.

  • 02

    Hand graded, four-hour triage

    Two graders per line, flipped and sounded. Every inbound load is triaged within four working hours so nothing rots in a mystery pile.

  • 03

    Zero landfill, measured

    Weighed in, weighed out, reconciled monthly. Zero pounds landfilled in 2025, with a certificate you can hand to an auditor.

  • 04

    Everything in writing

    No phone line by choice. Every price, date and commitment lives in an email you can search, forward and hold us to.

  • 05

    Repair before replacement

    A repair bay, a kiln, a de-nailer and a grinder on site. Repairing a pallet avoids roughly 11 kg CO₂e and costs you half of new.

  • 06

    Traceable by stamp

    Every unit carries a Pallet Passport ID burned into a stringer. Type it in and read its species, cycles, repairs and carbon ledger.

Receiving

What to check on delivery

Eleven minutes on the first three deliveries sets the tone for the whole relationship. Do this with any supplier, including us.

CheckHowPassIf it fails
Overall sizeTape measure, both dimensions, one pallet in tenWithin 1/4" (Grade A) or 1/2" (Grade B)Note it on the delivery ticket
SquarenessSteel square in two opposite cornersWithin 1/4" on the diagonalReject the unit; we replace next route
Protruding nailsPalm flat across the top deckNothing catchesReject — this is what tears packaging
Bottom boardsFlip one pallet in tenNo split through a nail lineReject; it will fail in a rack
MoistureLift one. Wet pallets are 8–10 lb heavierFeels dry, sounds sharpFloor stack to dry, do not rack at rating
Mould or stainingVisual, both decksWeathering only, no fuzzReject for any food-contact use
Grade mixCount against the delivery noteMatches what you orderedAsk for the count sheet to be corrected

Write failures on the delivery ticket rather than calling — a written record is the only thing that reliably changes supplier behaviour, and we replace rejected units on the next route with no restocking charge.

Avoid these

Six expensive mistakes

Every one of these has cost a customer real money in front of us.

  • 01

    Buying on unit price alone

    Purchase price is 5–15% of total cost per trip. Tare weight, damage rate and receiving-dock rework are usually larger line items, and none of them appear on a quote comparison.

  • 02

    Accepting overhang

    A load extending even an inch past the deck transfers weight into the packaging instead of the pallet. Case compression strength drops sharply and the damage appears three handling events later, in somebody else's warehouse.

  • 03

    Racking on a dynamic rating

    Dynamic is what a pallet carries while being moved. Racked — supported only at its edges — is smaller and is the only number that matters in beam racking. Ask for it in writing.

  • 04

    Specifying Grade A out of habit

    For one-way shipping, floor stacking and closed loops, Grade B does the same job for roughly 20% less. Over-specifying is paying for appearance.

  • 05

    Storing pallets on bare ground

    Two spare pallets as a base and a tarp that reaches the sides will keep a stack usable through a Portland winter. A soaked pallet gains nine pounds of paid freight weight and loses stiffness.

  • 06

    Forgetting that dunnage needs a stamp

    On export loads the bracing, blocking and chocks are solid wood packaging too. One untreated board can hold an entire container at a foreign port.

The yard

What stands behind this page

  • 14kpallets graded monthlytwo hand-grading lines
  • 1,100heat treated per dayISPM-15, chart recorded
  • 4.1M lbwood diverted last year68% reused whole
  • 0 lblandfilled in 2025weighed and reconciled

What this means for your reporting

Reuse is the cheapest emissions reduction available in logistics, and it is also the easiest to document. We model a new 48×40 softwood pallet at 14.2 kg CO₂e — lumber production, fasteners, assembly and delivery — and a reuse cycle at 3.1 kg, covering collection, repair materials, yard overhead and redelivery. The difference, 11 kg CO₂e per reuse, is the figure we publish.

We also publish the caveat: that figure assumes a reused pallet genuinely displaces the manufacture of a new one. Economists call the gap leakage, and nobody in this industry can honestly claim it is zero. We think displacement is high because the pallet market is regional and price-responsive, but we will not pretend it is perfect.

Which is why we lead with the number that needs no assumptions: measured landfill diversion. Landfilled wood decomposes anaerobically and releases methane, roughly 28 times worse than CO₂ over a century. Keeping four million pounds of wood out of a hole in the ground is a benefit you can weigh.

Per-unit figures

New pallet
14.2 kg CO₂e (range 12.8–16.1)
Reused graded pallet
3.1 kg CO₂e
Repaired customer-owned
2.2 kg CO₂e
Avoided per reuse
11 kg CO₂e, published
Wood kept in service
33–37 lb per unit
Biogenic carbon stored
~26 kg CO₂-equivalent
The full derivation

Questions

What people ask about stopped buying new, breakage went down

What is the minimum order or pickup?

No hard minimum for collection at the yard — come and take four pallets on a Saturday morning if you like. For delivery it is 50 units inside Portland metro and 150 outside it, because the truck has to earn its diesel. Outside our 180-mile fleet radius we quote through partner yards and freight, with the lane itemised.

How fast can this happen?

Standard 48×40 Grade A and B stock: same day for pickup, next day for metro delivery. Block pallets one to three days. Custom builds five to nine business days; engineered runs two to three weeks. Heat treatment is same day for booked batches and 48 hours standard. Written quotes always come back within one business day.

Why is there no phone number anywhere?

Because verbal quotes get remembered differently by different people. Since 2018 every price, date and commitment we make exists in an email you can search and forward. Most customers dislike it for about a month and then prefer it. Everything else happens in person at 3821 NW St Helens Rd, Portland, OR 97210.

Can I inspect before committing?

Please do. Visit the yard by email arrangement — closed-toe boots required, hi-vis provided — or ask for photographs of the actual pool your order would come from. We would rather lose an order than have a customer discover a surprise on their dock.

What documentation comes with it?

A written quote, a signed count sheet by grade, a weight ticket where material is weighed, heat-treatment certificates for treated batches (archived seven years), and a monthly diversion certificate for anything we collect for recycling — measured pounds kept out of landfill, which is the figure your ESG report actually needs.

What will you refuse to do?

Take methyl-bromide fumigated, chemically contaminated or fire-damaged wood. Buy marked rental-pool pallets, which belong to their operator. Promise same-day delivery outside the metro. Or quote a grade we do not think will survive your handling — we will specify downward and explain why.

Vocabulary

Terms used on this page

Defined the way a yard uses them, not the way a standards document does.

Block pallet
A pallet supported by nine solid blocks rather than stringers, giving true four-way entry and better racked performance.
Bolster
A squared timber used to block and brace loads inside trailers and containers. We re-saw ours from retired stringers.
Chamfer
The bevelled edge on a bottom deck board that lets a pallet jack roll on without catching.
Companion stringer
A second timber nailed alongside a cracked stringer to span the damage and restore the load path.
Core
Low-grade pallet material bought for board and fibre recovery rather than resale.
Closed loop
A pallet population circulating between known points and returning. Cycle time, not consumption, governs pool size.
Deck board
The boards nailed across stringers or blocks forming the top and bottom surfaces of a pallet.
De-nailer
The machine that separates deck boards from stringers and removes fasteners before fibre recovery.

The full glossary, 36 terms

Long reads

From the journal · written in the yard

Decision table

Five ways to get a pallet, compared honestly

Including the two we do not sell. Cost index is against a new wooden pallet of the same footprint.

Indicative figures for a 48×40 footprint in the Pacific Northwest, 2026. Rental pool economics vary by contract and are deliberately shown as a range.
OptionCost indexTripsRepairableCarbon per useBest forWatch out for
Grade A recycled45–559–14 then repairYes3.1 kgAlmost everythingColour varies; tare varies by a few pounds
Grade B recycled30–407–11 then repairYes3.1 kgOne-way, floor stacking, closed loopsLower racked rating (1,500 lb)
Remanufactured25–355–8Yes4.8 kgOne-way on a budgetVisibly mixed boards; 1,200 lb racked
New wooden10015–20 then repairYes14.2 kgTight tolerances, audits, odd sizesPays for appearance you may not need
Plastic500–1,00030–100NoHigh embodied, low per-useWash-down, deep freeze, pharmaCracks end its life; not repairable
Rental poolPer-trip feeManagedBy operatorOperator's figureExchange networks, retail mandatesPallets are not yours; losses are chargeable

We sell the first four and supply plastic where a wash-down line genuinely needs it. We do not operate a rental pool, and we will not buy marked pool pallets from you — they belong to their operator. Full comparisons

Worked example

Cost per trip, calculated properly

A real comparison for a plant shipping 600 pallets a month on a weight-sensitive lane. Copy the method, not the numbers.

Illustrative. Your lane rate, damage rate and disposal cost will differ — the point is that unit price is the smallest line in the table.
LineNew palletGrade A recycledGrade B recycledNote
Unit purchase price (index)1005035The only number most procurement systems compare
Trips before repair15–209–147–11New lasts longer; it also costs twice as much
Purchase cost per trip (index)5.64.33.8Price divided by trips
Tare weight36 lb35 lb33 lbRecycled fir is often lighter than new hardwood
Freight weight penaltyBaselineNeutral−3 lb/unitOnly matters on weight-limited lanes
Expected damage rate0.3%0.3%0.4%Graded stock behaves; ungraded stock does not
Receiving rejectionsRareRareOccasionalGraded + written tolerance removes most of this
End-of-life cost000We collect and pay or collect free — never a disposal fee
Documentation valueNoneDiversion certificateDiversion certificateReportable ESG outcome at no extra cost
  • Purchase price share of total cost5–15%
  • Freight weight share~30%
  • Damage & rework share~38%
  • Handling labour share~20%

Build this yourself

One row per option, six columns: unit price, tare weight, expected trips, damage rate, rejection risk, disposal cost. Multiply out across annual volume. It takes an afternoon, the cheapest unit price almost never wins, and we will happily help build it — including with numbers that do not favour us.

The full article

Diagnostics

Read the damage, fix the cause

Damage patterns are not random. Each one points at a specific handling behaviour, and fixing the behaviour is worth more than fixing the pallets.

What you seeWhat it almost always meansWhat to changeCost to fix
Split lead boards at one endForks driven in too fast and too highOperator training; dock lighting. Usually one shift is responsibleFree
Torn stringer notchesPallet jacks entering notched stringers at an angleSpecify block pallets with true four-way entrySpec change
Bottom boards ripped off cleanlyPallets dragged rather than lifted, or frozen to a cold-store floorFloor condition, forklift capacity at peakLow
Crushed corner blocksStacks higher than the rating, or uneven loads on one cornerStack-height policy; centre the loadFree
Out of square, nothing brokenRacking loading pallets diagonally — beams at different heightsRack survey. This one is worth chasingMedium
Mould in the middle of a stackWet pallets stacked tight with no airflowStore off the ground, cover the top, leave side gapsLow
Protruding nails tearing casesUngraded stock, or units repaired without re-checkingBuy graded; reject on the ticketFree
Deck boards cuppingMoisture cycling between a freezer and a humid dockKiln-dried pool; helical fastenersSpec change

Keep thirty of your own broken pallets aside for a month and photograph the damage. Patterns appear quickly. We do this analysis free with any repair quote, because a customer whose damage rate halves buys from us for a decade.

Storage

Keeping pallets usable through a wet winter

Portland takes about 36 inches of rain a year and most of it lands between November and March. You do not need a building to survive that — you need three habits.

Off the ground
Two spare pallets as a base. Anything touching soil wicks water and rots from the bottom layer up.
Covered on top
A tarp that actually reaches the sides. Rain enters a stack from above, not from the side.
Air gaps, not a seal
A sealed tarp traps condensation and produces the mould problem you were avoiding. Leave the sides open.
Away from drip lines
Anything under a roofline drip edge stays wet all winter, regardless of what you cover it with.
Aligned with the wind
Stacks oriented with prevailing wind dry noticeably faster. Free, and it works.
Rotate the pile
First in, first out. The bottom of an untouched stack is where pallets go to die.
What moisture does, measured on our own scale and grading line.
ConditionWeightStiffnessRack it?
Kiln dried (≤19% MC)33 lbFull ratingYes
Air dried, covered35 lbFull ratingYes
Damp, uncovered 2 weeks39 lbReducedFloor stack
Rain-soaked45 lbMaterially reducedNo — let it dry
Frozen wet45 lb+UnpredictableNo

Nine pounds of water per pallet is nine pounds of freight you pay to move. Across 600 units that is more than two and a half tonnes of water on a truck. Field notes on moisture

Timing

The pallet year in the Pacific Northwest

Supply and price both move with the seasons. Knowing the shape of the year is worth more than negotiating hard in October.

MonthWhat the region is doingPool depthWhat to do
JanuaryEverything quiet; recycling inflow steadyDeepBest buying window of the year. We stockpile now
FebruaryRepair bay catching upDeepLock quarterly pricing; book spring nursery stock
MarchNursery season beginsTightening on 36×36Spring stock should already be reserved
AprilNursery peak; landscaping startsTight on nursery decksMulch and bedding demand rises sharply
MayNursery winding downNormalisingGood month for custom builds and crate projects
JuneBerry harvestNormalWatch for short-notice agricultural requests
JulyBerries, early stone fruitNormalForecast your October number now
AugustPre-harvest build-upNormalising downHarvest slots allocated this month
SeptemberHazelnut and grape harvest beginsTightReserved stock only. Spot buyers struggle
OctoberPeak harvest; cider applesTightest of the yearDo not start here. Everyone calls at once
NovemberHarvest ends; rain beginsRecoveringGrading gets stricter; covered storage fills
DecemberRetail peak, agriculture stopsDeep againMulch demand collapses, biomass rises

Lifecycle

Eleven years in the life of one pallet

A composite built from real Passport records. Individual units vary enormously; the shape does not.

  1. Year 0

    Built

    Douglas fir from a mill inside 180 miles. Seven top boards, five bottom, three stringers, helical nails, 2,800 lb dynamic.

  2. Year 0–2

    Trips 1–4

    Beverage route work. Loaded, racked, unloaded, returned. Colour starts to grey; nothing structural changes.

  3. Year 3

    First inspection failure

    A lead board splits at a nail line. Twenty-minute fix: replacement deck board, re-square, re-stamp. Graded B from here.

  4. Year 3–6

    Trips 5–9

    Nursery and agricultural work, where deck gaps matter more than appearance. Spends two winters partly outdoors.

  5. Year 7

    Companion stringer

    A stringer cracks. A second timber is fitted alongside, spanning the crack. Measurably stiffer than before.

  6. Year 7–10

    Trips 10–13

    Local one-way freight. Tare weight has drifted up a pound from accumulated moisture cycling.

  7. Year 11

    Retired from carrying

    Two bottom boards gone, deck softening. Economic repair ends here. Chalk line through the whole pallet.

  8. Year 11

    Dismantled

    De-nailed board by board. Clear boards to the fabrication shop; structural stock back to the repair bay as donor material.

  9. Year 11

    Recovered

    What is left goes through a magnet and a grinder: mulch, bedding shavings, biomass fuel. The nails go to a scrap partner four miles away.

  10. Year 11+

    Still working

    The best boards are now shelving in a bottle shop, carrying its Passport ID burned into the end grain.

Thirteen trips, two repairs, roughly 143 kg CO₂e avoided against building thirteen new pallets, and nothing landfilled at the end. Look up a real record

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