New pallets and skids in Minnesota

Food is Minnesota’s pallet load. Food manufacturing employs 47,829 people, and within it meat and poultry processing 17,525, dairy 5,085 and fruit and vegetable preserving 4,721. Meat, dairy products and preserved vegetables all leave the plant on pallets, much of it cold.

The state has 105 million cubic feet of refrigerated warehouse space, a large amount for a state whose general warehousing is modest at 17,921 jobs. Hennepin County, Minneapolis, leads with 3,616 warehousing jobs. Pallets stored outdoors in winter come in cold and wet, and wood that stays wet grows mold, so dry storage matters as much as dry lumber.

Two other trades stand out. Plastics plants employ 14,511 people, shipping resin parts and film in boxes and bags. Pharmaceutical manufacturing employs 5,458, and its warehouses ask for clean, dry pallets of consistent size, with a written spec they can file; see pharmaceutical. Anoka and Washington counties, north and east of the Twin Cities, follow Hennepin for warehousing, with 1,119 and 779 jobs.

For cold loads see meat and poultry and dairy; for resin, bulk bags.