01Why it is a different problem
A distribution centre needing 800 pallets a week is a flow problem. We build a route, run it, and the supply matches the demand week by week.
A packing operation needing 40,000 pallets across six weeks is a storage problem. The pallets have to exist before the window opens, which means they have to be recovered, graded and held — and holding 40,000 pallets occupies real estate that is not free.
Manufacturing can add a shift. Recovery cannot. Cores arrive when the businesses that generate them are finished with them, and no amount of demand changes that rate in a six-week window.
02The timeline that works
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 12 weeks out | Volume, size and grade confirmed. Accumulation starts. |
| 8 weeks out | Pricing fixed. Delivery schedule agreed against your expected run rate. |
| 4 weeks out | First staging deliveries so you do not start from zero. |
| Window opens | Scheduled releases, adjusted weekly against actual throughput. |
| Window closes | Collection of empties and damaged stock on the same lanes. |
| Post-season | Repair of your returnable stock, ready for next year. |
03What to specify
- Grade B, usually. Field and orchard conditions consume a Grade A premium within a season. Save the grade for anything going onto a cold-store rack.
- Ventilated or open-deck for respiring produce. Solid decks trap heat and moisture.
- Heat treated if moisture is a risk, which in a wet season it is. It also drops weight.
- Bins where appropriate. Many operations run wooden or plastic bins rather than pallets, and those need the same forward planning.
- ISPM-15 for anything leaving the country.
04The half nobody books
Supply gets planned. Collection almost never does, and then the season ends and there are eleven thousand empty and damaged pallets sitting behind the packing shed with nowhere to go.
Book both legs in the same agreement. The trucks delivering into the window can collect on the way out, which is cheaper for everyone and means the yard is clear before the weather turns. It also means damaged stock gets repaired over the winter rather than deteriorating outdoors until next season, when it will be worth substantially less.
For operations that use both ends of our process — pallets out to the shed, ground fibre back as animal bedding — the loop is unusually tight. Details on the agriculture page and on mulch and biomass.
