UNITED STATES - Earlier this year, reports of a pallet shortage raised eyebrows across the supply chain. Although reports do not seem as dire as they were before, the pallet shortage is still something we’re acutely aware could adversely affect many companies.

To keep us abreast of the issues at hand, we turned to Dante Galeazzi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Texas International Produce Association.

“Things have calmed down slightly, but prices still remain elevated across the board for nearly all packaging supplies such as cardboard, bags, pallets, and fuel. The supply is not as tight as we saw this spring, and thankfully a lot of the industry responded well to the challenges with sourcing certain pallets and moved to accommodate the supplies that shippers could find,” Dante explained to me.

According to a report from Bloomberg published in the middle of July, lumber prices fell as much as 44 percent in June, but pallet prices kept climbing. Some suppliers even went so far as to install security to keep what pallets they had on-hand safe from thieves, the news source reported.

For the industry at large, most of us know that what affects one of us will affect all of us. Pulling together is the strategy that will see us through the supply chain challenges, as it always has.

“Hopefully, that theme of understanding and adaptation will continue,” Dante commented. “We still anticipate many of these supplies will maintain their elevated prices through 2021, given the massive supply chain disruptions for multiple goods over the last roughly 18 months. The difficulty now is adding those costs into the product, communicating the increases in the packaging and shipping inputs, working with all partners to find the best solutions for accommodating these challenges, all without producing disruptions. A task that is much easier said than done.”

We’re continuing to keep our eyes peeled on the situation, so stay tuned.

Texas International Produce Association