California Giant Initiates First Shipments Using Recyclable Plastic Pallets
California Giant Berry Farms officially began regular shipments on IGPS plastic recyclable pallets today from their Santa Maria facility. The company has been preparing since last fall for the conversion to the pallet distributed by IGPS and is looking forward to implementing the new system.
Company owners made the decision to convert to the new plastic recyclable pallet after extensive test shipments to customers during the 2008 season. The tests were received very well by both California Giant shipping operations as well as customers that participated. “There were really no negatives to the process, and overwhelming support for the switch”, says Anthony Gallino, Vice President of Sales. 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 their grower accounting system with RedLine Cooler to manage inventory and validate order fulfillment. The new module integrates IGPS pallet id tracking to leverage the Cooler software validating orders in real-time as they are picked and loaded.” said Todd Baggett, CEO of RedLine Solutions.
Last season the company converted all of its packaging to 100% recyclable material when they completed the shift to wax free corrugated. This shift in material ensures that retail customers are able to recycle all corrugated on receiving end. To that end the company is also encouraging customers to convert their 4 lb orders to utilize only the modular footprint container that holds three – 4 lb containers, further reducing the amount of actual corrugated that makes its way into recycle bins.
Contact:
California Giant Marketing
P O Box 1359
Watsonville, CA 95077
(831) 728-1773
Publication date: 3/19/2009
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