Are wooden pallets acceptable for BRC?

We have been discussing the use of wood in our plant. We do not use wood for anything but pallets and some people think that we should not even be using wooden pallets. Are wooden pallets acceptable for BRC or will we have to re-stack everything when it comes into the plant on plastic pallets?

What are others doing? I thnk it is overkill to re-stack every raw material on plastic pallets when it comes into the plant. Plus it will be a huge expense!

We have been discussing the use of wood in our plant. We do not use wood for anything but pallets and some people think that we should not even be using wooden pallets. Are wooden pallets acceptable for BRC or will we have to re-stack everything when it comes into the plant on plastic pallets?

What are others doing? I thnk it is overkill to re-stack every raw material on plastic pallets when it comes into the plant. Plus it will be a huge expense!

Do the BRC favorite for anything you question and perform a risk analysis. When we had BRC it was questioned but we were able to show that we had control of most areas. The only area that became a concern for us was where we lifted a tote of product on a skid. The product was lifted and dumped into a hopper so the risk a wood getting into product exisited. We changed this area to plastic and have to switch the skids but no other area was deemed a risk.

If your skids going into the plant are well maintained and kept below the level of your product lines, the risk should not be the high.

Incidently, when we had ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 audits the same questions were raised and the risk analysis sufficed.

Yep do a risk assessment and be sure to have a policy/procedure about how you control bad or broken pallets so they are not brought into an area where it can pose a threat to product.

Thanks guys,

I did a risk assessment and found a low risk as long as we follow our pallet inspection procedure and document the checks along with non-conformances. if there are any broken pallets, they must be documented and corrective action is taken, which is also doucmented

I've not been to a BRC certificated plant yet which doesn't have wood pallets.

As others have said, you need to only accept pallets which aren't damaged; have a wood policy, audit (put it into your GMP audits for example), make sure you have a closed packet / box policy in wood areas. In the UK (and I think they're global) we have 'chep' pallets which are blue wood which also helps with visibility if a piece of wood did fall off.

As others have said, risk assessment is a good idea. It puts down your thinking and it then makes it clear to the auditor that you've thought about it. Then, even if the auditor disagrees with your conclusions, then they can see your thinking and as long as you don't have loads of complaints that proves your thinking is wrong, I can't see how they can raise a non conformance.

Remember that the quality and strength of plastic pallets is variable and the fact that they are plastic is not a universal panacea to this problem.

Remember that the quality and strength of plastic pallets is variable and the fact that they are plastic is not a universal panacea to this problem.

Absolutely agreed.

I forgot to say earlier though that wood should be excluded from open product areas IMO and with the greater emphasis on area segregation in BRC version 6 I suspect they will be tighter on this in future.

Thanks guys,

I did a risk assessment and found a low risk as long as we follow our pallet inspection procedure and document the checks along with non-conformances. if there are any broken pallets, they must be documented and corrective action is taken, which is also doucmented

Layer pads are also a good idea when using wooden pallets.

I agree with others ideas,

Normally wooden pallets are observed in warehouse. Risk assessment can demonstrate your control on such issue. Wooden pallets need to be maintained in good conditions.

Best regards,

Jason