BRCGS, the Global Standard for Food Safety, does not ban wooden pallets. It requires you to identify the risk they carry — splinters, nails, staples, moisture and pest harbourage — and control it. In open-product dairy and milling areas, most sites find a cleanable plastic pallet is the simpler control.
Written and reviewed by the Beecraft UK Sales & Technical Team · Last reviewed · Beecraft UK Ltd, company no. 2460437
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What does BRCGS actually require of pallets?
Not a particular material. A controlled risk.
BRCGS is the Global Standard for Food Safety, the scheme most UK food manufacturers are certified against. It is written as requirements you have to meet, not a list of approved equipment. Nowhere does it say wooden pallets are prohibited. It puts the burden on you: identify the hazards your handling equipment introduces, assess them, and put controls in place you can evidence.
That changes the conversation with an auditor. The question is never “is this pallet allowed?” It is “show me you have thought about it, and show me the control works.”
Four themes come up again and again in dairy and milling: foreign-body risk, cleanability, segregation between raw and finished areas, and pest harbourage. Hold a defensible position on those four and the pallet stops being an audit issue.
One thing we will not do is claim a certification we do not hold. We are a pallet manufacturer, not a certification body, and we do not present our products as BRCGS certified or approved. Food-contact suitability is specified per application at quote stage against the product, the process and the cleaning regime.
The four themes auditors keep returning to
- Foreign body — can anything come off this pallet and reach product?
- Cleanability — can it be cleaned, dried and evidenced?
- Segregation — do raw-side and finished-side pallets stay apart?
- Pest harbourage — does the pallet give pests somewhere to live?
Why are wooden pallets a particular problem in dairy and milling?
Because both processes handle open or lightly protected product, and timber sheds.
A flour mill moves product through areas thick with fine dust. A dairy runs wet, warm and washed down. Neither is kind to a material that splinters, holds moisture and is held together with nails and staples.
The failure modes are unglamorous and well known:
- Splinters and loose slivers from a deck board struck by a fork.
- Nails and staples working proud as the timber shrinks, then falling out.
- Moisture uptake — in a dairy, a pallet that never dries; in a mill, damp flour dust caking into the grain.
- Mould and microbial growth on damp timber in a warm room.
- Pest harbourage in voids and between blocks — which is why stacks of empty timber outside a mill get flagged so often.
Heat treatment does not solve any of this. Solid wood packaging crossing borders must be heat treated and marked under ISPM 15, and sites sometimes point to that mark as though it were a food-safety control. It is a plant-health measure aimed at timber pests, and says nothing about splinters, staples or cleanability.
None of which makes wood automatically non-compliant. Plenty of sites run timber safely in outer warehouse and yard areas and reserve plastic for production and finished goods. That split is usually the sensible answer, and one we set out for mills and dairies across our industry pages.
How does an auditor actually approach handling equipment?
By following it. An experienced auditor does not inspect a pallet in isolation; they trace where it has been.
Expect them to walk the route: goods-in, raw storage, the transfer point into production, the packing hall, finished-goods racking, the yard. At each step the questions are the same — what came in here, what was on it, and what stops that reaching product. The pallet gets judged by how well that chain is controlled, not by what it is made of.
| The question | What the auditor is checking | What a strong answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| “Where do these pallets come from?” | Supplier control, condition on arrival, whether anything enters from an uncontrolled pool | A named specification, an inbound check and a quarantine route for damaged units. |
| “How is this cleaned?” | Surface finish, crevices, and whether it can be dried | A written cleaning method and frequency, with completed records. |
| “What stops a fragment reaching product?” | Splinters, nails, staples, damaged edges, tape and label residue | A foreign-body risk assessment naming handling equipment, plus a breakage procedure. |
| “Do raw and finished pallets mix?” | Movement across site and what happens at the transfer point | Physical or colour segregation, with a transfer procedure people can describe. |
| “Could pests harbour in here?” | Damp timber, voids, and how stacks of empties are stored | Empties off the ground in a defined area, covered in the pest contractor’s reports. |
| “What happens when one breaks?” | Who inspects, who decides, and where the damaged unit goes | A written removal and replacement route, with records showing it is used. |
What does cleanability mean in practice?
That the pallet can be cleaned to a defined standard, dried, and shown to have been cleaned. All three parts matter.
Timber fails the first and cannot manage the second. A moulded plastic pallet does not absorb water, holds its dimensions and can go through a washdown and straight back into service. The detail is where the specification is decided:
- Open or closed deck. A closed deck keeps debris off the floor below; an open deck drains and dries faster. In a dairy the drying usually wins; in a mill a closed deck that stops flour dropping through can be better, but only if it drains.
- Corners and radii. Sharp internal corners collect flour and dried milk solids; generous radii do not.
- Voids and hollow sections. Anything that can take on water and not release it is a problem. Ask what happens inside the structure, not just on the surface.
- Chemical compatibility. Tell us what you clean with and at what temperature. Caustic and hot washdown are not the same duty as a wipe-down.
Our hygienic food-grade range is built for that duty. Which polymer, deck pattern and construction suits you comes out of the specification conversation, not off a web page.
What should you have documented before the audit?
Less than people fear, but it has to be real and it has to be current.
The four documents that carry most of the weight:
- A risk assessment that names handling equipment. If pallets appear nowhere in your HACCP or prerequisite programmes, the auditor concludes you have not considered them.
- A pallet specification. What you buy, from whom, to what standard. Material and any food-contact declarations belong here — specified per application, not asserted generically.
- Cleaning records. Method, frequency, responsibility and signatures.
- A damage and removal procedure. Who inspects, what fails, where the failed unit goes, and evidence units have actually been removed.
The last one is where sites most often come unstuck. A damaged-pallet procedure with no records behind it reads as a document written for the audit. One with a handful of entries reads as a live system, even if the numbers are small.
Standardising on one pallet specification across a site makes all four easier to hold together, and usually improves the price per pallet. We supply mills, dairies and food manufacturers from Leeds and West Yorkshire down to Slough and the Thames Valley, and the sites that pass smoothly are almost always the ones running fewest variants.
What else gets asked about BRCGS pallets?
Does BRCGS ban wooden pallets?
No. BRCGS does not prohibit wood outright. It requires you to identify the risks handling equipment introduces and control them, with evidence. In practice many sites conclude that in open-product areas the easiest control is a cleanable plastic pallet, and keep timber for warehouse and yard use.
Are Beecraft pallets BRCGS approved?
No, and nor is any pallet — BRCGS certifies food businesses and their systems, not individual pieces of equipment. What matters at audit is that your risk assessment names the pallet, the specification is documented and the cleaning control operates. We specify a product against your application and tell you what documentation comes with it.
Are plastic pallets food safe?
Suitability for food contact depends on the polymer, the product, the contact time and the cleaning regime, so it is specified per application at quote stage rather than claimed as a blanket property. Tell us what the pallet carries and how it is cleaned, and we will confirm what we can supply.
What is the difference between a hygienic pallet and a standard one?
Construction, mainly. A hygienic pallet is designed to be washed: smooth surfaces, generous radii, no traps that collect debris, and a structure that drains and dries. A standard industrial pallet is designed to carry load economically, and may have features that are fine in a warehouse and awkward in a washdown.
Do I need different pallets for raw and finished areas?
You need segregation you can demonstrate, and dedicated pallets are the simplest way to get it. Colour coding makes it visible from across the room, which is what an auditor wants. A single pool with a controlled transfer and cleaning step can work, but it depends on people following it every time.
How should empty pallets be stored on a food site?
Off the ground, in a defined area, protected from weather and included in your pest control programme. Stacks of empties in a yard are a classic finding, particularly damp timber, because they offer shelter and harbourage next to the building. Plastic empties stack more consistently and can be washed before they go back in.
Where do these figures come from?
Sources & further reading
- BRCGS — Global Standard for Food Safety, the audit scheme most UK food manufacturers are certified against – www.brcgs.com
- Food Standards Agency / GOV.UK — food contact materials regulations: the UK rules on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food – www.gov.uk
- GOV.UK — Wood packaging material for import and export: the ISPM 15 heat-treatment and marking rules that apply to solid timber packaging, and the processed materials they exclude – www.gov.uk
Where to go next
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Send us the area, the product and how the pallets are cleaned. We will specify against your risk assessment and price it the same working day.
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