Can IKEA’s Paper Pallets Hold the Weight of Misinformation?
Totally by coincidence, Bloomberg also weighed in on the IKEA paper pallet situation today. Why does the major press always seem compelled to herald the demise of wood pallets when we are talking, at this point at least, about a tiny sliver of the pallet market. The misleading headline said that Ikea’s Paper Pallet Challenges Wood’s 50-Year Dominance. No kidding. If news reporting around other important events is only as accurate as this, then we really are in trouble.
In spite of the grossly misleading headline, here are three added details of note pertaining to the story.
- IKEA uses 10 million pallets per year
- They anticipate cutting transport costs by 140 million euros annually at a cost of 90 million euros for paper and forklifts (Not sure exactly what is being said here – if they are offsetting annual costs?)
- IPP Logipal anticipates a rapid increase in its EasyPal paper pallet business in Europe.
You can read the entire Bloomberg report here.
One of the key things to consider when reading the Bloomberg report is that IKEA is a global company that doesn’t believe in the economics or ergonomics of manually destuffing floor loaded ocean containers. As such, a low profile, easily customized footprint, such as offered by Optiledge or paper pallets, is critical. Many other global supply chains simply palletize onto wood pallets at the time of destuffing, or double the unit load onto a conventional wood pallet, due to the lack of compatible rack storage.
