More than the sum of their parts, Tristan Wiggill considers the value of pallets in the supply chain.

While major retail groups like SPAR and Pick ‘n Pay are arguably the biggest users of pallets in South Africa, there are also a number of smaller companies that rent pallets to serve the transport and storage contracts they have secured.

This means that both new and used pallets are sold and rented, with the overwhelming majority being made from wood. Wood pallets are typically assembled from pine because it is a strong, weather resistant material that can be easily sourced.

“The bigger factories tend to throw pallets away, without paying much attention to recycling,” says Juanita Schultz, manager at Quality Pallets. “There are numerous companies that drive around collecting these discarded units and refurbishing them, where necessary. Refurbished pallets are more popular than new ones as they are a more cost-effective freight carrying solution. These are also favoured by cross-border operators, but seldom come back from their journeys into the continent,” she says.

More expensive plastic pallets are not nearly as popular but are used by a number of industries, such as farming and those related to transporting or storing fresh produce and/or meat. “Plastic pallets are scarcer because people tend to recycle the plastic to make other items rather than make more pallets. Wooden pallets are generally easier to access and easier to pick up and carry. Some have four sides for ultimate user-friendliness,” she explains.

Steel pallets are extremely rare and are used in the largest of factories. They are used in special orders and where the weight to be carried is significant (five tonnes or more).

“Euro or CEN pallets used to be very popular in South Africa and were once readily supplied from Europe and Brazil. However, shipping these pallets back and forth across the world was not cost-effective and so their use has dropped off significantly,” she tells us.

While pallet sizes vary, the most popular size is still the 1 m x 1.2 m four-way pallet. Since these are open on all four sides, they are easy to pick and transport with a forklift. These pallets can be used in any industry, while their two-way counterparts are used primarily in the cement, tile and brick industries because their design is structurally stronger and more suited to the task.

Night flying

There are many fly-by-night companies in the pallet industry,” says Richard Behm, operations manager at Palbin. “These businesses come and go frequently as they provide pallets at unsustainable cost.”

If treated properly, pallets can last for decades, but this is seldom the case. One reason for this is that forklift drivers have little care or sympathy for the pallets they pick up. They are not seen as valuable business assets and are frequently thrown around and dropped along the supply chain.

South African exports have slowed dramatically over the last few years, he says, and the pallet industry, as a whole, is becoming more regulated. “In 2001, there was a global organisation that checked for pests in the timber that was used to make wooden pallets. That organisation’s influence dropped off for several years and, as a result, insects were getting into the timber and were then being exported around the world. At the same time, the quality of timber used changed.”

Recently, however, the Department of Agriculture has become more involved, with the industry now having to use heat-treated timber. Sawmills are being made to cut wood that has no fault lines and, so, standards in the industry are being raised, making it more difficult for fly-by-night operations to compete.