This may be stating the obvious, but if you just load a pallet with cardboard boxes and then try and move it without securing them, chances are that sooner rather than later they’ll go flying all over the place. Pallet wrap (aka stretch film, or stretch wrap) therefore plays a vital, yet often underappreciated role in packaging.

There is, however, an art to wrapping a pallet properly – don’t worry, it’s not difficult, you don’t have to pass an exam or anything! It’s just that if you don’t do it correctly, you’re still likely to end up at least with battered boxes and at worse with broken contents.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h-ability – that’s the beauty of pallet wrap!

Pallet wrap has two main characteristics, the first of which is its ability to stretch. This means that when you’re wrapping your pallet, as you go round a corner you can give it a bit of extra pull to ensure that it holds the load tightly (unlike shrink wrap, which you can wrap fairly loosely and then heat so it shrinks and clings to the load).

However, because of this, you need to make sure you stack the boxes on your pallet as closely together as you can – try not to leave any gaps for them to move about in. Because if they do shift in transit, they’ll push on the wrap from the inside, and then the stretch will work against you. As the film stretches out, it creates more space for the boxes to move in, so they’ll stretch the wrap out even more, so…well, you get the picture!

The other thing about it is that the different layers stick to each other as you go round and round the pallet. This prevents pockets of air forming which might allow the film to stretch out from the inside, as well as giving the whole thing a bit of extra strength.

Some more handy pallet wrapping tips

Start at the base (you can tie the polythene around one of the pallet’s ‘feet’ to secure it) and go round the pallet a few times before working your way up to cover the boxes. This will help ensure the boxes and pallet stay together!

If you don’t want others to know what’s on your pallet, you can get black, red or blue stretch film. And as well as being a good security device, colour coding pallets is a handy way of quickly identifying different drops on a busy delivery run.

If you’re working in a place where you need to get lots and lots of pallets wrapped over the course of a shift, then get a pallet wrapping machine and let it do all the work!!

And the best tip of all? Davpack stocks clear, black and coloured pallet wrap in huge quantities so we can supply it to you quickly and with guaranteed quantity savings!

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Rick Stanford

Rick has been a salesman in the packaging supplies business for more than thirty years. Now semi-retired, he divides his time between tending his allotment in north Devon, getting depressed at the continuing travails of his home-town football club Macclesfield Town, and sharing his considerable experience and knowledge with the readers of the Davpack blog. Davpack

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