Most of the raw material for pallets and wood packaging is rough sawn timber, but workability, sustainability and quality are now attracting more attention. Dimensional accuracy is an important criterion, because the range of acceptable deviation for pallets is very small.
Slow-growing Nordic wood is not just resilient and strong, but also lightweight. This helps reduce the overall weight of packaging and thus the carbon footprint of transports. Sawn timber is also easy to work with, always an advantage and particularly for special packaging.
Pallet manufacturers as customers
Metsä Fibre’s main market area in this segment is the Netherlands, one of the world’s busiest countries for distribution and transportation. The company’s customers are local pallet manufacturers.
“Many types of goods, machines and machine parts require some kind of pallet or packaging during transport. Wood is a lightweight, sustainable and increasingly popular material for this purpose,” says Jean-Mathieu Cossutta, Metsä Fibre’s Sales Manager for France and Benelux.
The fact that wooden pallets and boxes can be used, repaired and recycled several times adds to the popularity and sustainability of wood. This can extend their life-cycle by several years.
“Ultimately, parts worn to the point when they are no longer usable can be recycled and made into new products such as chipboard or floor coating. Wood also serves as efficient carbon storage throughout its life-cycle. No other packaging material can match it in this respect.”
Forecasting to benefit customers
Customer-oriented service, reliable deliveries and consistent product quality are among our competitive advantages.
“It is difficult to stand out in this segment with sawn timber alone, so you must offer excellent service and efficient logistics as well,” says Cossutta.
“Our customers really appreciate us sending a weekly list of planned and confirmed deliveries. It helps them make forecasts and plan their operations.”