Sell plastic pallets in Minnesota
Minnesota had 17,921 warehousing jobs in 2025, 31st among the states, and its most concentrated pallet-using industry is meat and poultry processing. Send the lot with its ZIP; the desk reads size, style, grade and marks, and rules it sold, returned or scrapped.
Last reviewed November 12, 2026
Minnesota in numbers
- Warehousing and storage jobs, 2025
- 17,921 (31st of 50 states)
- Warehousing establishments
- 312 (24th of 50); about 57 jobs each
- Share of US warehousing jobs
- 0.94%
- Food manufacturing jobs
- 47,829 (12th of 50)
- Most concentrated pallet-using industry
- meat and poultry processing, 1.6x the national share of employment
- Pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs
- 5,458
- Auto parts jobs
- 2,028
- Refrigerated warehouse space, October 1, 2025
- 105 million cubic feet (11th of 50)
Reading a Minnesota lot
Count the warehouses and Minnesota comes 24th; count the jobs in them and it comes 31st. It sits in the middle of the fifty by warehousing jobs. With about 57 people a site against a national 82, a lot is often a few stacks from one of many small docks.
Minnesota has 2.7 food manufacturing jobs for every warehousing job, against 0.9 across the fifty states. The plants are the bigger half of the picture, and they swap pallets on a schedule more than on wear. Among the other industries counted here, pharmaceutical manufacturing (5,458 jobs) is 2.7 times the size of auto parts (2,028).
Hennepin County holds 20.2% of Minnesota's warehousing jobs, and the top 3 listed hold 30.8%. The jobs are spread across the state, so no one county sets the route. The dossier follows one metro in Minnesota: Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington.
USDA counted 105 million cubic feet of refrigerated warehouse space in Minnesota, 11th of 50 and about 5,859 cubic feet for each warehousing job, against 2,254 across the states it reports. Cold storage is a bigger part of the picture here, so expect cold-chain lots: decks that tolerate cold and moisture, and questions about washdown.
Where Minnesota's warehousing jobs sit
| County | Warehousing jobs | Share of the state's total |
|---|---|---|
| Hennepin | 3,616 | 20.2% |
| Anoka | 1,119 | 6.2% |
| Washington | 779 | 4.3% |
What Minnesota's industries put on the dock
- Meat and poultry processing: 17,525 jobs, 2025
- Dairy product manufacturing: 5,085 jobs, 2025
- Fruit and vegetable preserving: 4,721 jobs, 2025
- Food manufacturing: 47,829 jobs, 2025
- Plastics product manufacturing: 14,511 jobs, 2025
By location quotient meat and poultry processing leads in Minnesota, with 1.6 times the national share of employment. The page on meat and poultry plants shows what that industry sets down on a dock.
The metro that matters in Minnesota
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington: 15 counties (Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti...). 6,599 private jobs in warehousing and storage in 2025 (0.35% of the US total; 0.4% of local private jobs), disclosed counties only. Largest warehousing counties: Hennepin (3,616), Anoka (1,119), Washington (779). Most concentrated: food manufacturing at 0.6x the national share of employment. ZIPs with the most warehousing establishments (Census ZBP 2023): 55121 Saint Paul (19), 55113 Saint Paul (10), 55428 Minneapolis (9), 55418 Minneapolis (7), 55379 Shakopee (6).
Where Minnesota sits among the fifty
| Measure, 2025 | Minnesota | Next state above | Next state below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warehousing jobs | 31st: 17,921 | Oklahoma, 19,669 (+1,748) | Oregon, 16,750 (-1,171) |
| Warehousing establishments | 24th: 312 | Louisiana, 326 (+14) | Alabama, 306 (-6) |
| Food manufacturing jobs | 12th: 47,829 | Arkansas, 51,799 (+3,970) | Indiana, 46,474 (-1,355) |
States next to Minnesota
| State | Warehousing jobs | Largest county for warehousing | Food manufacturing jobs | Top concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 33,054 | Kenosha (8,358) | 81,993 | dairy product manufacturing |
| Iowa | 19,824 | Polk (4,393) | 60,161 | meat and poultry processing |
| South Dakota | 3,269 | Minnehaha (2,930) | 10,866 | meat and poultry processing |
| North Dakota | 1,438 | Cass (1,186) | 5,564 | food manufacturing |
Minnesota has fewer warehousing jobs than 2 of these 4 and more than the rest. The largest of them, Wisconsin, has 1.8 times Minnesota's 17,921. A lot near a state line can be read against either side, so give the exact ZIP.
Other pallet-using industries counted in Minnesota
| Industry | Jobs, 2025 | Against warehousing jobs |
|---|---|---|
| Pharmaceutical manufacturing | 5,458 | 0.3 to 1 |
| Auto parts | 2,028 | 0.1 to 1 |
Sending a lot from Minnesota
Count the stacks, give the ZIP where they stand, and use the sorter or the form below. If the dock holds a clean line-change stock, say so in the message.
How many warehousing jobs does Minnesota have?
17,921 private-sector jobs across 312 establishments in 2025, 0.94% of the US total, which ranks Minnesota 31st of 50.
Do you take plastic pallets from Minnesota?
Yes. The desk reads lots from every state, and the ZIP lets it read the route in Minnesota. This site states no price or pickup date.
Which Minnesota industry is most concentrated?
Meat and poultry processing, at 1.6 times the national share of employment in the 2025 federal data used here.
Who asks, and what they need
- Retailers that collect pooled or one-way pallets
- Stacks of marked and unmarked pallets left by suppliers; need to know which can be sold and which belong to a pool.
- Automotive plants and suppliers
- 48 x 45 pallets that match bulk containers; closed-loop reuse; heavy dynamic and static loads.
- Food and beverage distributors and bottlers
- Clean, odour-free, washable pallets; open or closed deck; 56 x 44 beverage and 48 x 40 sizes; often asks about food-contact paperwork.
What the sources say
- EPA's 2018 municipal solid waste data: plastics generation was 35.68 million tons, of which 3.09 million tons (8.7 percent) were recycled and 26.97 million tons landfilled; natural HDPE bottles were recycled at 29.3 percent. The page gives no pallet-specific or polypropylene figure. (epa.gov)
- HDPE is the most common resin in plastic pallets; PP is more rigid and the page recommends it for unsupported racking. (nelsoncompany.com)
- For products touching the pallet directly, stricter federal requirements may call for non-blended virgin HDPE; recycled pallets often meet general FDA needs. (nelsoncompany.com)
- North American plastic pallets in the common sizes are about 5 to 6 in tall. (blog.containerexchanger.com)
- 48 x 48 plastic pallets hold four 55-gallon drums without overhang; 48 x 45 matches North American auto parts bulk containers. (nelsoncompany.com)
- PHS lists its EXP 100 nestable (48 x 40 x 5.2 in) at 78 pallets per stack and 2,340 per truckload, and its EXP 116 (48 x 40 x 5.75 in, 15,000 lb static) at 40 per stack and 1,260 per truckload: a higher static rating comes with fewer pallets per stack. (phsinc.com)
- Nelson Company defines dynamic capacity as the load a pallet carries in motion, always below static; static as the load at rest and the bottom pallet's limit in a stack; racking as the load across an open rack span, often the lowest and given only for pallets designed for it. (nelsoncompany.com)
- Private employers in the US averaged 173,844 jobs across 2,936 establishments in fruit and vegetable preserving (NAICS 3114) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (27,518), Wisconsin (11,014), Washington (10,988), Ohio (10,327), Texas (9,194). (data.bls.gov)
- Private employers in the US averaged 288,633 jobs across 934 establishments in motor vehicle manufacturing (NAICS 3361) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Michigan (44,870), Texas (28,069), California (27,690), Kentucky (23,308), Alabama (22,311). (data.bls.gov)
- Counties with the most private dairy product manufacturing jobs (NAICS 3115) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Sheboygan County, Wisconsin (3,238), Los Angeles County, California (3,204), Franklin County, Ohio (2,930), Tulare County, California (2,916), Dodge County, Wisconsin (2,659), Marathon County, Wisconsin (2,535). (data.bls.gov)
- The five states with the most warehousing and storage jobs held 39% of the national total in 2025, and the top ten held 58% (California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Indiana, New York), BLS QCEW. (data.bls.gov)
- States where dairy product manufacturing is the largest share of private jobs in 2025 (BLS QCEW): Wisconsin (1.1%), Vermont (0.8%), Idaho (0.7%), South Dakota (0.4%), Iowa (0.3%); the national share is 0.13%. (data.bls.gov)
- Static capacity is the highest of the three ratings; racking is often the lowest; dynamic is always lower than static. (nelsoncompany.com)
- PHS lists 48 x 40 stackable plastic pallets with dynamic ratings of 2,500 to 5,000 lb and static ratings of 3,000 to 30,000 lb. (phsinc.com)
- Plastic pallets weigh about 3 to 15 lb when light and up to 300 lb when heavy; a typical GMA wood pallet weighs about 37 lb. (en.wikipedia.org)
- Plastic pallets can deform (creep) under heavy long-term loads and are hard to repair. (en.wikipedia.org)
Keep reading
Send a lot from your state
Size, count, grade, branding and ZIP. Photos help, and you can reply to the first answer with them. This site states no price or pickup date.