Food makers along the Front
Food processing turns up in several places. Spanish Fork has meat processing, with Mountain Country Foods once the largest private employer at 350 people. Ogden's city page for Business Depot Ogden lists food manufacturing and confectionery among its trades and names Capstone Nutrition and Honeyville Grain as tenants, and Clearfield lists food manufacturing.
What a food line needs from wood
| Need | Why | How to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Clean decks | No spills or stains reach the product | Grade A or new |
| Dry wood | Below 20 percent moisture, mold has nothing to grow on | Ask how the stack was stored |
| No loose nails | Nothing sheds into a line | Say it is a food line |
| Right footprint | Beverage cases pack square | 42 x 42 |
Winter is the risk
Spanish Fork averages 66 inches of snow a year and Salt Lake City 60. A stack outdoors collects meltwater. Even a slight breeze of a few feet per second helps keep stored pallets from molding, and air circulation is a reason to stack on spacers and not flat on the ground. Read keeping yard pallets dry.
Food-plant questions
- Does heat treatment mean the pallet is clean? No; see the HT stamp.
- Can I ask for dry stock only? Yes.
- Is new always better? Not always; Grade A dry is often enough.
The detail sits on the food plant pallets.
A one-paragraph request that works
"I run a line on 48 x 40 and need clean Grade A pallets every week, kept dry, about 200 at a time. Heat treatment is not needed. Please say how the stock has been stored." That is short, specific and answers the three questions any food buyer must settle.
- Say if your auditor has a rule on repaired pallets.
- Say whether pallets sit outside your door before use.
- Say whether beverage lines need a different footprint.
- Say if returns are expected or one-way is fine.
Reading a storage history
Where a pallet has been matters more than its grade. A pallet that sat in an enclosed, dry warehouse is a different product from one that stood in the open for a season. Ask for the history in a sentence: indoors or outdoors, covered or bare, how long, and whether any spill or pest was noticed.
- Indoors, dry, short time: lowest risk.
- Outdoors under a roof: moderate.
- Outdoors in snow: highest risk.
- Unknown history: ask or choose new.
Sources