Pallets for pharmaceutical and medical freight in Orlando

The scale

The McKesson distribution center represented a $102 million investment and 84 jobs. Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy employs 1,000 to 5,000 people in the region. Orlando also holds Lake Nona's medical cluster, which includes the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.

What the pallet needs

Clean

Free of stains, residues and odours.

Dry

Below 20 percent moisture, so nothing grows on it.

Sound

Grade A where the receiver inspects; no loose boards.

Stamped

Only if the load is leaving the country.

The sourcing question

Medical freight often has its own written pallet policy. If yours does, send it with the request. The aim is to match the policy, not to guess it.

The pallet is part of the quality file

Pharmaceutical shippers often write pallet requirements into supplier agreements: material, cleanliness, treatment and sometimes the pallet's history. Those documents decide what a buyer may supply, and a site like this one cannot override them. What can be described is the generic condition: dry, clean, whole, and free of odour. A pallet that has stood in an open Orlando yard through July is unlikely to meet any of those.

A short list to send with a request

• The customer's written pallet policy, if there is one.
• Whether the pallet must be new, or may be recycled.
• Whether wood is allowed at all, since some programs specify plastic.
• Whether the load crosses a border, which would bring in the ISPM 15 mark.

The medical cluster in context

Lake Nona's Medical City holds the University of Central Florida College of Medicine and the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, and the sources describe a distribution centre of 475,000 square feet in Orlando. These show that medical supply and training sit in the metro, not that any particular building uses any particular pallet. Clean, dry wood or an alternative material is set by each shipper, and a request should quote the shipper's rule.

Clean rooms do not take wood

Inside a pharmaceutical manufacturing area, wooden pallets are often banned because wood sheds fibre and holds moisture. Plastic pallets are used there, and wood is kept to the warehouse and shipping dock. That split explains why a medical distributor can have a written pallet policy that names both materials, and why a wood pallet request must say which side of the building the pallet will enter.

Cold-chain and temperature

Some medical freight is shipped under controlled temperature, in insulated boxes or refrigerated trailers. A wooden pallet in a cold dock is exposed to condensation each time it moves between cold and warm air, and a pallet that is dry at the door may be damp by the time it is stacked. A pallet stored beside a cold room for any length of time deserves a moisture check before it takes a load.

Serialized freight and the lot

Pharmaceutical cartons are tracked by lot and serial number, and a pallet is built and labelled as a unit. Damage to a pallet during transit puts the lot in question, so receivers inspect for crushed cartons and a leaning stack as well as for the pallet itself. A pallet with a protruding nail or a rough edge that cuts a carton makes a loss that is far larger than its price.