Wood pallet return program with customers

Due to increasing pallet prices, I've been asked to look into the possibility of having customers return pallets to our facility for reuse.  Does anyone have any experience with this?  We buy new wood, heat-treated pallets.  Would the pallets need to be heat-treated again?  Would an inspection program on the returned pallets be sufficient?  Any guidance would be appreciated!  We are FSSC 22000 certified.

I don't know how many pallets you're working with, but this sounds like a giant headache waiting to happen, IMO. The few bits of returnable package we've owned and used for customers have been nothing but a pain to chase up, get back, find the customer "accidentally" used it for something else.

I'm not sure what's available in the US, but here in the UK we have a few third-party providers who manage rental/return schemes for various reusable stuff like pallets, IBCs etc. If I was going to go down this route I'd use them, as they've already got the infrastructure, tracking systems etc set up to manage it.

Having said that, I'd also look at other providers of wooden pallets too. These shouldn't be hugely expensive, and last I was involved in looking at it, the only reason to go down the returnable pallets route was because they tend to be plastic rather than wood, and some sites in the UK now require this. Otherwise it was generally cheaper for us to buy wood and consider them single-use (for us - I'm sure they are used again, but we don't get them back) than it was to rent, chase up, collect and bring back to site etc.

As for heat treatment, I wouldn't expect you to need to do that again - it's normally used for phytosanitary requirements for the wood itself, rather than to deal with any specific consequence of use of the pallet.

Why not use the CHEP pallet program??? Way easier

https://www.chep.com.../consumer-goods

Aside from CHEP there is PECO as well.

https://www.pecopallet.com/

Sounds like a nightmare scenario to me. I can foresee a customer auditor asking "so how do you guarantee one of your other customers doesn't use those pallets to hold bags of manure or human waste before shipping them back to your plant and you turning them around and sending them to us here at X". 

If I were in your shoes, I'd put together a risk analysis for whoever asked you to look into it and after going over that with them ask them if they want you to proceed. If they still want to go forward, then put together the manhours, documentation, infrastructure, etc. that your risk analysis showed was required to negate the risk to an acceptable level and present them with that information.

Hopefully by this time they realize a CoGS increase might warrant a price increase and push that to whoever decides that in your organization. The CoGS increase will probably factor in regardless, just in different areas (increase in packaging vs increase in getting that packaging returned).

You should have an incoming pallet inspection check anyway..........really you should

So to answer your question (if you cannot go the rented pallet route)  As long as your not producing high care/high risk product, this isn't an issue

Receivers need training and a log so they inspect the incoming pallets, reject if needed (truck or actual pallets) and record how many came in and good (or not) condition and what they did with the ones that didn't meet your requirements

Done and done

Appreciate all the feedback, I think I have enough to generate an inspection form.  The current plan is to only have returned pallets from 1-2 specific customers with a high delivery rate that will agree to store inside and not use for other purposes.  Our current pallet inspection is focused on seals, trailer cleanliness and heat-treated stamp, because we only receive new pallets.  Unfortunately CHEP pallets are not in option, they won't even talk to us about supply until the fall.