We have sat in on a number of food-safety audits with customers, which is an unusual thing for a pallet supplier to do and the single most useful way we have found to understand what the standards mean in practice. The questions are remarkably consistent.
The nine questions
- What has been on these pallets before? The prior-use question. For a recycled platform the honest answer requires traceability, which is exactly why we started stamping passport numbers.
- How do you exclude chemically treated wood? Physical segregation at receipt, documented, with a licensed disposal route for anything suspect.
- What is your mould and moisture control? Covered storage, FIFO, kiln drying available, and a written rejection criterion rather than a judgement call.
- Are there protruding fasteners? An automatic reject in our grading. Auditors check this physically and it is the fastest finding they can write.
- Is there a pest management programme in the storage area? For the yard, yes. They will also ask about yours.
- What is the cleaning or sanitation status? Wood cannot be sanitised the way plastic can. The honest answer is control of source and condition, not sanitisation, and auditors accept that when it is stated plainly.
- Can you trace this delivery to a batch? One lot number per delivery, passport numbers listed, count sheet retained.
- What is your non-conforming product procedure? Photograph, email, we collect and replace at our cost. In writing, in the terms.
- Who inspected it, and are they trained? Named graders on our payroll, trained in house, no subcontracted grading.
Where recycled stock is genuinely weaker
Prior use. There is no way around it: a reclaimed platform has a history, and for a small number of programmes — infant formula, certain pharmaceutical packaging, allergen-critical lines — the documented answer has to be "none", which means new lumber. We will tell you when that is the case rather than selling you something that will fail an audit.
Where recycled stock is genuinely stronger
Moisture. Years in service dry a platform more thoroughly and more stably than any kiln schedule, and dry wood does not bloom. New green-lumber pallets delivered into a humid plant are a more common mould problem than recycled stock, which surprises people every time.
The practical preparation
Ask us for the documentation pack before the audit, not during it: feedstock segregation attestation, grading criteria, storage practice, treatment batch records, and the passport numbers for your current pool. It is an email, it takes us an afternoon, and it converts nine questions into nine documents.
The documentation pack, item by item
Ask us for this before an audit rather than during one. It takes an afternoon to assemble and it converts nine verbal questions into nine documents, which changes the character of the conversation entirely.
- Feedstock segregation statement: how chemically treated and contaminated wood is identified at receipt, where it goes, and who the licensed disposal partner is.
- Grading criteria: the written standard our graders work to, including the automatic rejects — protruding fasteners, decay, visible pest activity.
- Storage practice: covered, elevated, FIFO, with the moisture rejection threshold stated as a number rather than a judgement.
- Treatment batch records for any heat-treated stock in your pool, tied to your lot reference.
- Pest management programme: the yard's own documented programme, inspection frequency and contractor.
- Pallet Passport numbers for the platforms in your current pool, with recovery origin and repair history.
- Non-conforming product procedure: ours is in the terms of sale, which means it is contractual rather than aspirational.
- Insurance certificates and named-insured endorsements if our crews enter your site.
The wood-versus-plastic question, answered honestly
Auditors sometimes ask why you are not using plastic. The honest answer for most food operations is cost and end-of-life, and the honest caveat is that for genuinely hygiene-critical zones — wash-down areas, direct product contact, allergen-segregated lines — plastic is frequently correct and we will say so.
Wood cannot be sanitised the way a moulded plastic platform can. What wood offers is control of source and condition, documented. Stated plainly, that answer is accepted; dressed up as equivalence, it is not, and we have watched suppliers lose accounts by overclaiming here.
The moisture advantage, which auditors rarely expect
Reclaimed platforms are usually drier and more dimensionally stable than new green-lumber ones, because years in service bring wood to equilibrium more thoroughly than any kiln schedule. The practical result is that recycled stock blooms less often than new stock delivered into a humid plant.
This runs directly against the instinct that new must be cleaner, and it is worth having the moisture data to hand, because an auditor who understands the mechanism will accept it and one who does not will write up the wrong thing.
Where we will tell you to buy new
Infant formula, certain pharmaceutical packaging, allergen-critical lines, and any programme whose written criteria require no prior use. There is no way around prior use in a reclaimed platform, and selling you something that will fail an audit is a poor way to keep a customer.
Marcus, yard supervisor · Pallets Recycle, 1113 Ingram Ave, Richmond VA · published July 22, 2025 · 837 words. Corrections welcome — tell us if we have this wrong.