California Giant Berry Farms officially began regular shipments on IGPS plastic recyclable pallets yesterday (Wednesday 18 March) from its Santa Maria, California, facility following extensive test shipments to customers during the 2008 season, which were well received by both California Giant shipping operations and participating customers.
“There were really no negatives to the process and overwhelming support for the switch”, said Anthony Gallino, vice-president of sales, in a press statement. “The plastic pallets weigh less and are cleaner than their wood counterparts.”
California Giant has focused considerable efforts over the past few years to assess each practice in the field and throughout the distribution system to reduce waste, increase efficiencies, and preserve precious resources.
The plastic pallet conversion will occur as each company facility comes into production this season beginning with Santa Maria.
An additional positive element to the pallet conversion is that it greatly simplifies the challenge of reconciling pallet inventories since the IGPS pallet id is associated with the pallet id created by the accounting system upon receipt.
“Some of our customers are using IGPS pallets to streamline their own processes,” said Lucky Westwood, vice-president of operations.
“California Giant uses its grower accounting system with RedLine Cooler to manage inventory and validate order fulfilment,” said Todd Baggett, CEO of RedLine Solutions. The new module integrates IGPS pallet id tracking to leverage the Cooler software validating orders in real-time as they are picked and loaded.”
Last season California Berry Giant converted all of its packaging to 100 per cent recyclable material when the group completed the shift to wax free corrugated, which allows retail customers to recycle all corrugated packaging.
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