Plastic pallets offer food and beverage safety advantages
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 48 million Americans are stricken with food borne illness every year. For instance, there were E. coli outbreaks in both the U.S. and Europe in 2012 involving fresh produce. In addition, June of 2012 saw a Listeria recall involving bagged salads in six states: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Handling in the field has been suspected in these cases, but shipping platforms have come under scrutiny as well. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act, enacted in January 2011, is a positive step toward addressing the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, and the law details a number of guidelines – particularly in the areas of product tracking and preventive standards – that companies can follow in order to avoid contamination via food borne pathogens.
The movement to ensure greater food safety has led to evaluation of all the steps from field to table, including shipping platforms. For decades, wood pallets have been the standard of shipping for almost all manufactured products of any type. It has only been within the past several years that a viable alternative, the plastic pallet, has become available.