Plastic pallets delivered in California

A state that ships north to south

Most California truck freight runs along the length of the state. I-5 carries it from the Oregon line through Redding, Sacramento and the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, over the Grapevine and down into Los Angeles and San Diego.

SR-99 runs parallel on the valley's east side and links the farm towns: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Fresno, Visalia and Bakersfield. US-101 follows the coast through Salinas, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.

Freight bound east leaves on I-10 toward Phoenix, I-15 toward Las Vegas, I-40 from Barstow and I-80 from the Bay Area over Donner Pass to Reno. A delivered price to a California ZIP depends a great deal on which of these lanes the load uses.

Regions, roads and the pallet work in each

Milk, lettuce and wine are wet loads

California produces more milk than any other state, and its dairy plants run washdown rooms where wood breaks down and holds moisture. Plastic decks can be hosed and sanitized, and the 40x40 footprint the dairy trade uses comes in solid and open-deck models.

Salinas and the Central Coast pack lettuce, spinach and strawberries straight into cooling tunnels. Produce on 48x40 pallets moves through forced-air or vacuum cooling, so an open deck that lets cold air pass and a resin that ignores condensation both help.

Wine country in Napa, Sonoma, Lodi and Paso Robles ships cased glass that is heavy for its size. Ask for the dynamic rating of the exact model, because glass loads ride on forks far more often than they sit still.

• Plastic pallets for dairy plants →
• Food grade plastic pallets →

Export through San Pedro Bay and Oakland

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach sit side by side and handle a large share of the country's container trade with Asia. Oakland is the north state's container port and moves a good deal of agricultural export cargo: almonds, walnuts, pistachios, wine and dairy products.

Plastic export pallets avoid the heat treatment and IPPC stamp that ISPM 15 requires of wood packaging. USDA APHIS lists plastic pallets among the alternatives to wood packaging material that it does not regulate.

A 40-foot container is about 39.5 feet long and 7.7 feet wide inside, so the footprint that loads best depends on the box and on the receiving country's own pallet standard. Many shippers into Asia ask about 1100x1100 or 1200x1000 rather than 48x40.

Inland, the Port of Stockton on the San Joaquin River takes ocean ships by deepwater channel, and West Sacramento has a smaller river port. Rice, fertilizer and bulk cargo dominate both.

• ISPM 15 and plastic pallets →

Truckload or LTL to a California dock

A full order travels on a 53-foot dry van, which is about 52.5 feet long and 100 inches wide inside. How many pallets that holds depends on the model: one published heavy-duty nestable 40x48 from Rehrig Pacific loads 1,200 to a trailer because the legs drop into each other.

Rackable and stackable models with full runners take far more space per pallet, so a truckload of them is a much smaller count. Smaller orders go LTL, which suits a single dairy, winery or packing shed off the main lanes.

Tell us if the delivery site lacks a dock, since LTL carriers can bring a liftgate truck to many rural California addresses.

Selling a fleet out of California

Packing sheds and DCs here often end a season or a contract with more pallets than they need. Send the count, the footprint, the resin if the code is legible, the condition and the pickup ZIP, and we answer with an offer to buy them as pallets or as regrind.

Cracked HDPE and PP still have value once ground into flake, so a broken stack is worth a quote before it goes in a roll-off.

• Sell your plastic pallets →