What does your plant make? The pallet it ships on
What does your plant make? The answer decides the size, build and grade your pallets should be, and these ten trades are the ones around the Grand River.
- Size
- By trade
- Build
- By trade
- Grade
- By trade
- Trades
- Ten
- Towns
- Kent to Muskegon
Ten trades, one table
| Trade | Usual size | Usual grade | Page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto parts and stamping | 48x45, 48x40 | A or B | Open |
| Plastics and molding | 48x40 by default | A or B | Open |
| Office furniture | Built to a drawing | New | Open |
| Food and grocery | 48x40 | Clean, dry A or B | Open |
| Medical devices | By the receiving dock | New or A | Open |
| Fruit packing | 48x40 | Sound A or B | Open |
| Aerospace and foundries | Heavy, custom | New or A | Open |
| Export shippers | 48x40, 48x48, Euro | Heat-treated | Open |
| 3PL and distribution | 48x40 | A or B | Open |
| Retail and small business | Mixed | Mixed load | Open |
How trade and pallet connect
Pallets go where the product goes. The rack, trailer and receiving dock set the size; the product's weight and cleanliness set the build and the grade. A stamping plant, a snack plant and a sofa plant ship on three different pallets, even if they are three miles apart.
Motor vehicle stamping, plastics and office furniture are Greater Grand Rapids' three most prevalent industries, according to The Right Place's 2023 manufacturing report. Food distribution, medical devices and the Fruit Ridge harvest follow close behind.
If your trade is not here
Send the request anyway and say what the plant ships and how it is packed. Sizes, builds and grades have the vocabulary to describe it.
Which trade is yours
Several plants belong to more than one. An office furniture maker with an export business is also an export shipper. A grocery distributor that runs a fleet is also a 3PL dock. Read both pages and borrow from each.
Greater Grand Rapids had more than 78,500 manufacturing jobs in 2023, up 7 percent from 2013, and manufacturing made up 21.1 percent of gross regional product in 2022 per The Right Place. Pallets move with that output.
A shorthand for each trade
- Stamping: dense, repeating, size-specific
- Plastics: light, clean, high-volume
- Furniture: long, awkward, built once
- Food: dry, clean, nothing loose
- Medical: small lots, new decks
- Fruit: seasonal, bin-based
- Foundries: heavy, one-off, rated
- Export: marked, documented, dry
- 3PL: high-volume, mixed, surplus-heavy
- Retail: small, mixed, occasional
These ten words cover a lot of the questions a request must settle.
Looking across the table
Two trades, stamping and furniture, use sizes that most others do not. Two, food and fruit, care most about moisture. Two, aerospace and export, care most about marks and weight ratings. The remaining four are about volume and mix. Seeing the pattern helps a new buyer know which questions to expect.
If your trade is not listed
Pick the nearest one and say in your request what is different. A pallet request depends more on size, grade and handling than on the trade.
The ten trades
Auto parts and stamping, plastics and molding, office furniture, food and grocery, medical devices, fruit packing, export shippers, aerospace and foundries, third-party logistics warehouses, and retail and small business each have a page.
Each one gives the size, build and grade the trade usually ships on, what its receiving docks look at, and what to put in a request.
By town: auto parts in Wyoming and Kentwood, food and grocery in Wyoming, Walker and Byron Center, office furniture from Grand Rapids to Zeeland and Holland, aerospace and foundries in Muskegon, fruit on the Fruit Ridge around Sparta and Comstock Park.
Ready to ask? Send us the request.