Pallets and Containers for FMCG Shipments
A loading reference for consumer goods: published pallet and container standards, why most FMCG cubes out while water weighs out, and how a layer plan moves your cost per unit.
A container has two ceilings and you will hit one long before the other. One is volume, the other mass, and which stops you is decided by what goes in the box rather than the box itself. Most avoidable freight cost in consumer goods comes from a load that ran out of one ceiling with the other still unused.
What follows is a working reference for the geometry: the pallet footprints an EU load is built on, what standard container sizes give you, how to run the fit arithmetic on your carrier's figures, and how a layer plan becomes a landed cost per unit. Published standards are quoted with their source named. Anything product-specific — cases per layer, pallets per order, sensible minimum quantities — is absent, because it cannot honestly be stated in the abstract; it is confirmed in writing against a real order.
The pallet footprints an EU load is built on
In Europe the default is the EPAL Euro pallet, written EPAL 1 or simply “the Euro pallet”. EPAL publishes the specification: a footprint of 1,200 × 800 mm, a height of 144 mm, an own weight of approximately 25 kg, a safe working load of 1,500 kg. Stacking laden pallets on a solid, even surface, EPAL states the bottom-most must not carry more than 5,500 kg.
Two other EPAL formats turn up regularly here. The EPAL 2 is 1,200 × 1,000 mm and 162 mm high, weighs about 35 kg and takes a safe working load of 1,250 kg; the wider footprint suits deep cases and some beverage formats. The EPAL 6 half pallet is 800 × 600 mm and 144 mm high, weighs about 9.5 kg and takes 750 kg — the display and impulse format, built to fit an aisle end rather than a racking bay.
Two details are easy to miss. The pallet's own height is height you have paid to ship and cannot fill: 144 mm of every stack is timber. And its own weight counts against the container's payload. Outside Europe you will meet other footprints, and the one that matters is the one your warehouse, racking and handling equipment expect — specify it at enquiry rather than discovering it at unloading.
Wood treatment, the IPPC mark and why it stops shipments
Wooden packaging crossing a border is a plant-health matter before it is a logistics one. EPAL states that since 01/01/2010 all newly produced EPAL Euro pallets are heat treated in accordance with ISPM 15, that treated pallets “can be recognised by the branded markings on both central blocks on the long sides”, and that methyl bromide treatment is prohibited. EPAL calls ISPM 15 compliance “the most essential condition for the unrestricted use of load carriers in the international movement of goods”.
That means two checks. Confirm the mark is present and legible on the pallets actually being loaded, not on a specification sheet. And confirm what your destination's plant-health authority requires, because inspection regimes differ. Plastic and pressed-fibre pallets sit outside the phytosanitary question, but change the weight, the cost and whether the pallet is expected back.
What the standard container sizes give you
ISO 668 fixes the external envelope of the series 1 containers the liner trade runs on. A twenty-foot unit is 6.058 m long, 2.438 m wide and 2.591 m high externally. A forty-foot unit is 12.192 m long, with the same width and the same standard height. The forty-foot high cube keeps that footprint and raises the external height to 2.896 m.
Internal dimensions, tare weight and permitted payload are a different matter, and we deliberately publish no table of them. They vary between builds and operators, and the figures governing your load are the ones on the unit you are allocated: the CSC safety-approval plate on the door carries that container's ratings, and your carrier publishes internal dimensions per equipment type. Plan from the specification for the equipment type on your booking, not from a generic table.
Three consequences follow from the geometry. A high cube buys vertical space, not mass — valuable for light bulky cargo, useless to a load already at its weight ceiling. A forty-foot unit gives double the floor of a twenty but not double the permitted weight, which is why dense cargo often ships in twenties. And the road leg at destination has its own legal weight limits, which frequently bind first: a container loaded to its rating that cannot legally be hauled to your warehouse is a solved geometry problem and an unsolved commercial one.
Cube-out, weight-out, and which one your order hits
A load cubes out when it fills the internal volume with payload still available, and weighs out when it reaches permitted mass with floor or headroom still showing. FMCG cubes out far more often than it weighs out, because much of the category is air in a carton: extruded snacks and crisps, tissue, nappies, cereal, confectionery outers, cosmetics cartons, wipes.
The exceptions are consistent and worth knowing before a range is fixed. Water and soft drinks in PET, anything in glass, canned goods, liquid detergents and sauces are dense enough to reach the weight ceiling with the container visibly unfull. That is why the drinks lines in our catalogue and the bagged snack range belong in the same box: one supplies the mass, the other fills the cube, and the freight is paid once either way. A container built entirely of still water in PET finishes with metres of empty space above the load; a container built entirely of stackable crisp cans finishes light.
Household and family lines sit across the middle: liquid detergents and cleaning chemistry behave like beverages, while nappies and family care are among the bulkiest cargo in the trade. The weight-to-cube balance is a range decision, not a loading one, and it belongs in the conversation before the pro-forma.
Doing the pallet-fit arithmetic yourself
Geometry is a calculation, not a claim, so run it yourself. Take the internal length and width your carrier publishes for the equipment type on your booking. A Euro pallet presents two footprints — 1,200 mm one way, 800 mm the other — so each row across the width can be composed in more than one orientation, and the efficient pattern usually alternates down the length. Test the combinations against the internal width, take the arrangement leaving least dead space, then divide the internal length by the depth it consumes per row.
Then do the vertical. Usable stack height is the internal height, less the 144 mm the pallet occupies, less the clearance your loader needs to place the top layer without dragging it along the roof. That figure, not the container height, is what the layer plan lives inside.
Finally check the door: internal width and door aperture are not the same measurement, and a pattern that fits the floor is worthless if the last row cannot be pushed home. Anyone quoting a universal pallet count is quoting an average of somebody else's equipment. The reliable number is the one you calculate from your carrier's specification and your supplier's confirmed pallet dimensions.
Building a mixed pallet layer by layer
Pallets are built in layers because layers make a stack stable and countable. Each layer is a pattern of cases covering the deck as completely as it can; the number of layers is set by usable stack height and how much compression the bottom case takes without deforming.
Three rules do most of the work. Keep the layer footprint uniform, so every tier presents a flat bed to the one above. Put mass low, so the centre of gravity stays down through a sea passage. And avoid overhang: the corner posts of a carton carry the stack, so a case whose corners project past the deck edge loses most of its compression strength.
Column stacking — cases aligned corner over corner — preserves compression strength and suits a tall stack of light cartons. Interlocking trades some of that strength for stability against shifting; layer pads give part of it back. Which is right depends on the case, and the manufacturer's specification is the honest starting point.
Mixed pallets — several variants or brands on one deck — cost more to build and more to check on arrival, and are what makes a first container possible for a buyer who cannot take a full pallet of every line. Build by whole layers wherever quantities allow, label the pallet with what is on it, and plan for slower receiving. How categories are combined on a live shipment is covered on the consolidation and freight page, and the range to draw from sits in the product catalogue.
Holding a load together in a moving box
Sea transit adds motion in three axes and a daily temperature cycle. A stack stable on a warehouse floor is not automatically stable at week three.
Stretch wrap that ties down
Containment force matters more than the number of turns, and the wrap must tie the bottom tier down onto the deck rather than merely encircle the load. A stack wrapped to itself but not to the pallet will walk.
Strapping and corner boards
Vertical strapping through the pallet holds the stack as one body; corner boards spread the load and stop straps cutting into the top cases. Both are cheap against a leaning pallet.
Layer pads and top caps
Pads between tiers redistribute point loads and let an interlocked pattern behave more like a column. A top cap shields the highest layer from anything condensing off the roof.
Void filling and bracing
Dunnage bags and blocking close the gaps a load plan leaves. Cargo braced on one axis only still has somewhere to go when the ship rolls.
Pallet labelling
Mark each pallet with the lines, counts and pallet number used on the packing list, so the receiving warehouse can verify a delivery without breaking the wrap.
Moisture control
Cardboard loses compression strength as it takes up moisture, so a humid stow settles a stack that was square at loading. Dry pallets, dry stow and desiccant are the routine answers.
Temperature, damp and the lines that mind them
Some categories are far more route-sensitive than others. Fat-based confectionery is the obvious case, where season and routing matter as much as the container; the confectionery lines we supply are ranged and timed with that in mind rather than sent blind down a hot lane. Emulsions and several personal-care formats are similarly sensitive to heat cycling.
Container condensation is the quieter risk, and it damages packaging rather than product: warm moist air loaded in a temperate port meets a cold steel roof at sea, and what forms there lands on the top tier. Loading dry, stowing dry and desiccant are the answers.
Aerosols and some cleaning chemistry carry dangerous-goods classification under the IMDG Code at sea and ADR by road. That changes segregation inside the container, the documentation set and sometimes the carrier. It is not an obstacle, but settle it while the order list is drawn rather than on the loading bay — the same applies to propellant packs within the personal-care range.
Where load planning shows up in landed cost per unit
Full-container freight is charged for the container, not for what is inside it. The arithmetic is blunt: if ocean freight and terminal charges for a box come to F, and the box carries U saleable units, the freight component of your landed cost is F ÷ U. Nothing about F improves when the load is badly built — U falls, and the per-unit figure rises. A container that cubes out with much of its payload unused has paid full price for mass it never carried.
Groupage behaves differently. Part-load freight is normally rated on the greater of volume or weight, so a light bulky pallet and a dense heavy one can attract the same charge; your forwarder's tariff states which basis applies. That is one reason a part-load rarely beats a full container on unit cost, and why buyers move from pallets to containers as soon as the range justifies the step.
Two further effects are easy to overlook. Consolidating several categories into one box means one transport document, one customs entry and one arrival to staff, instead of several of each. And the Incoterm decides which costs sit inside the seller's figure and which land on you afterwards — it also shapes the customs value duty is assessed on, so the term and the destination's tariff treatment belong in the same conversation as the loading plan. Our routing and Incoterms reference sets out how EXW, FOB, CIF and DAP divide them.
What to send a supplier before a load can be planned
A load plan is only as good as its inputs. Sending these at enquiry stage removes most of the back-and-forth and produces a quotation you can compare.
- Destination — named port or door address — and the Incoterm to quote.
- The container type you can receive, and whether your route and delivery point take a high cube.
- The lines you want and an indicative split, so the weight-to-cube balance can be tested.
- Your pallet specification: footprint, maximum height, maximum weight, and whether pallets are one-way or exchangeable.
- Any destination labelling or language requirement, and who applies it.
- Racking or stack-height limits at your warehouse.
- Whether you need whole-layer quantities or accept part-layers on mixed pallets.
Ask for the same precision back on the pro-forma rather than in an email: pallet count, case configuration per layer and per pallet, gross and net weights, total cube, and photographs of the built pallets before sealing.
Where published figures stop and the enquiry starts
Everything above with a source named is a published standard you can check yourself. What is deliberately absent is the part that changes with every order: how many cases of a given format make a layer, how many pallets a range fills, and the smallest sensible order for a destination. Those depend on the exact pack format, the pallet height your warehouse accepts and the weight-to-cube balance of the lines you take, and they are confirmed in writing on the pro-forma against the allocation offered — which is more useful than a table that would be wrong for most readers.
Sources. Pallet footprints, heights, own weights, safe working loads and ISPM 15 treatment: EPAL load-carrier specifications, epal-pallets.org, retrieved August 2026. Container external dimensions: ISO 668, series 1 freight containers. Internal dimensions and payload ratings vary by build and operator — the CSC plate on the unit and your carrier's equipment specification govern.
Have a load planned around your range
Send the destination, the Incoterm and the lines you want. We will come back with the pallet build, weights, cube and document set in writing before anything is booked.