MaMeeFarm™ Case Studies | Logistics • Shared Assets • Business Operations
28 October 2026
A pallet helps move goods from a factory to a warehouse or store. Once those goods are unloaded, another task begins: making the empty pallet available for its next shipment.
Someone must locate it, arrange collection, check its condition and repair it when necessary.
CHEP’s pallet pooling business connects those activities. Customers rent reusable platforms, while CHEP manages their return and preparation for further use.
The business depends on keeping equipment available across a network of different companies.
Connecting physical movement with information
CHEP’s United States service description sets out a sequence. Customers order pallets through its myCHEP portal, receive them or collect them from a service centre, then load and ship their products.
They report the shipment through the portal. CHEP subsequently arranges pallet collection and return to its service network, where equipment is inspected and repaired when necessary. Proposals are tailored to shipment locations, volumes and frequency.
The information accompanying a shipment matters because the product and its transport platform have different journeys.
The goods move towards their buyer. The pallet remains part of a reusable pool and needs another destination after unloading.
Renting therefore changes the customer’s role, but participation still involves coordinating movements and reporting them.
Meeting a retailer’s requirements
A customer-hosted account from Texas Engineered Aluminum and Manufacturing Corporation, known as Team Corp, illustrates another reason businesses join a pool.
Published in February 2019, the account describes the aluminium-products company expanding beyond its local Texas market during 2018. Larger retail prospects raised pallet requirements and suggested CHEP.
Team Corp’s chief executive reported that a tailored rental arrangement addressed initial concerns about pricing and minimum quantities. She also described accepted pallets as removing an obstacle in discussions with larger retailers.
This is a reported customer experience, rather than proof that pooling caused the company’s growth.
Its relevance is more specific: the transport platform can be part of a retailer’s conditions for receiving goods. Compatibility helps a supplier participate in the customer’s operating system.
Finding opportunities in return journeys
Recovering pallets creates transport requirements. Where routes and schedules overlap, those movements can sometimes be combined with existing freight activity.
A CHEP case study published in 2016 describes a Belgian collaboration involving Coca-Cola Enterprises Belgium, retailer Colruyt and haulier Vervoer Van Dievel.
The project began in February 2013. CHEP examined overlapping delivery routes and designed a transport circuit connected to its Bornem service centre. The account attributes more competitive transport pricing to reduced empty running.
The example shows how the return network can create opportunities for coordination. It does not establish that every collection can use an existing journey or achieve the same savings.
When repair becomes the constraint
Reuse also depends on processing capacity.
Brambles, CHEP’s parent company, reported that repair constraints emerged in parts of its Central and Northeastern United States network during April 2026.
Higher-than-anticipated demand coincided with labour availability challenges, subcontractor turnover and additional repair work supporting more consistent pallet quality.
The company reported responding through pallet relocations, expanded repair capacity and purchases of new pallets. At 30 June 2026, it held 3.4 million unrepaired excess pallets in its United States network that required inspection and repair before redeployment.
That historical disclosure makes an operating distinction visible: owning equipment does not mean it is ready to supply.
An asset may exist within the network while still requiring work before another customer can use it.
The business significance
CHEP’s model brings rental, collection, inspection and repair into a continuing service.
For customers, that can reduce the activities they must organise themselves. For the pool operator, it creates an obligation to connect returning equipment with future demand.
The available cases document customer participation, transport collaboration and capacity constraints. They do not provide enough route-level cost information to conclude that renting is cheaper than ownership for every business.
The commercial task is to keep suitable pallets moving to the places where they are needed. Reusability becomes a functioning service through the people, facilities and transport that make each subsequent journey possible.
Sources
- CHEP USA – How CHEP Works
- Team Corp – CHEP Case Study, 28 February 2019
- CHEP – Coca-Cola Enterprises Belgium Transport Collaboration (2016 PDF)
- Brambles – Annual Report 2026
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