CHEP and Loscam pallets are hired, not owned, and All Freight Carrying carries freight on both of them every business day along with plain one-way pallets. The pallet under a load of grocery, hardware or retail stock is usually the property of a pooling company, rented by the day, and it moves between businesses on a paper trail of transfer dockets. Get that paper trail right and pallets cost very little. Get it wrong and a business can pay hire for years on pallets it no longer has. This guide explains how the system works and what it means when you book pallet freight with us.
What is pooled pallet hire?
Pooled pallet hire is a system in which a pooling company owns a very large stock of identical pallets and rents them to businesses that need them, charging a daily hire fee for every pallet on a business’s account. In Australia the two national pools are CHEP, whose pallets are painted blue, and Loscam, whose pallets are red. Both pool the Australian standard 1165 × 1165 mm pallet, which is why so much grocery, beverage, hardware and retail freight arrives on a blue or red base. Our guide to standard pallet sizes in Australia covers the size itself.
The idea is simple. A manufacturer hires pallets from the pool, builds loads on them and sends them to a distributor or retailer. Rather than sending the empty pallets back, the receiver takes over the hire, uses the pallets for their own outbound freight, and eventually returns them to the pool. The pallets circulate; the hire follows whoever is holding them.
Why does most grocery and retail freight move on CHEP or Loscam?
Most grocery and retail freight moves on pooled pallets because the large retailers and distribution centres require it. A distribution centre receiving thousands of pallets a day needs them to be one size, one quality and one ownership system, so that every pallet can go straight into racking and straight back out on an outbound load. Pooled pallets are inspected and repaired by the pool, so they are more consistent than pallets bought and reused by individual businesses.
For a supplier, the choice is often made for them: if your customer’s receiving rules say CHEP or Loscam, that is what the load has to be on.
What is the difference between owning and hiring a pallet?
An owned pallet is bought outright and is yours to keep, give away or lose. A hired pallet never belongs to you: it belongs to the pool, you pay for every day it sits on your account, and you are responsible for it until it is transferred to someone else’s account or returned to the pool. Owned pallets suit businesses whose customers do not return pallets and do not require a pool. Hired pallets suit businesses whose customers are on the same pool and will accept transfers.
What is a transfer docket and why must both parties record it?
A transfer docket is the record that moves hired pallets from one account to another. When you send a load on CHEP or Loscam pallets, you raise a transfer for that number of pallets to the receiver’s account, and the receiver accepts it. Until the transfer is accepted, the pallets are still on your account and you are still paying hire on them, even though they are physically sitting in someone else’s warehouse.
That is why both ends have to record it. The sender records the transfer off, the receiver records the transfer on, and the pool matches the two. A transfer that only one side has recorded is a dispute waiting to happen: the sender believes the pallets have gone, the receiver has no record of receiving them, and the pool keeps charging the account that last claimed them. Most pools expect transfers to be raised promptly, and transfers raised long after the freight moved are often rejected.
In practice the transfer docket travels with the consignment note, showing the pallet count and the receiver’s pool account details, and the receiver signs for the pallets when they sign for the goods. Our guide to filling out a consignment note covers where the pallet count and pallet type belong on the paperwork.
What happens when pallets are not transferred?
When pallets are not transferred, the hirer keeps paying. The daily hire fee is small, which is exactly why it is dangerous: a few pallets that were never transferred off an account do not show up as a problem in any single month, but they sit on the account for years. Businesses reconciling their pool account for the first time regularly discover pallets they sent away long ago and have been paying for ever since.
The other outcome is a lost-pallet charge. If pallets cannot be accounted for at all, the pool may bill the account holder for their replacement, which is far more than the hire. Reconciling your pool statement against your transfers every month, and chasing any receiver who has not accepted a transfer, keeps both of those costs at zero.
How do returns and dehire work?
Returning pallets to the pool is called dehire. Empty hired pallets can be returned to one of the pool’s own depots or to an approved collection point, and the pool issues a dehire record that takes the pallets off your account. Until that record exists, the pallets are still yours to pay for, so a stack of empty blue or red pallets behind a warehouse is costing somebody money every day it stays there. Businesses that receive on pooled pallets but send on plain ones build up exactly this kind of stack.
In some trading relationships the pallets go back to the sender rather than to the pool. This is often called pallet exchange: the driver delivering a load of full pallets takes the same number of empty pallets of the same type away, so no transfer is needed. It only works where every party, including the carrier, has agreed to it and records it.
What are plain, white or one-way pallets?
Plain pallets, also called white pallets or one-way pallets, are bought rather than hired and are not part of any pool. They are usually unpainted softwood or hardwood, lighter than a pooled pallet, and expected to make one trip. Nobody transfers or returns them, which makes them simple to send: the receiver keeps them, reuses them or disposes of them. The downsides are that quality varies, some receivers refuse them, and a weak plain pallet under a heavy load is a common cause of damaged freight. A one-way pallet still has to be sound, with no broken boards, before it goes on a truck.
What is heat treatment and ISPM 15?
ISPM 15 is the international standard for timber packaging, including pallets, that crosses a national border. Raw timber can carry insects and fungi, so pallets used for export must be heat-treated or otherwise treated to the standard and stamped with the recognised mark. The stamp is what customs authorities look for, and a load on untreated or unstamped pallets can be refused, re-palletised or destroyed at the destination port.
This matters for export only. Domestic freight within Australia does not need ISPM 15 treatment, and pooled CHEP and Loscam pallets are not normally used for export in any case, because they belong to the pool. If you are exporting, buy treated and stamped plain pallets for the job.
What should a sender record on the consignment?
A sender should record the pallet type and the pallet count on every pallet consignment, and should note whether a transfer docket is attached. The receiver, the carrier and the pool all rely on that information. The minimum is:
- The number of pallets in the consignment.
- The pallet type: CHEP, Loscam or plain.
- Whether a pallet transfer has been raised, and to which account.
- The receiver’s pool account details, if a transfer is involved.
- Any instruction about pallets coming back.
What this means when you send with All Freight Carrying
We carry freight on CHEP, Loscam and plain pallets across the Sunshine Coast, Gympie, northern Moreton Bay and Brisbane, and our pallet freight service handles single pallets through to full loads. When you book, tell us the pallet type along with the count, dimensions and weight, so the right space and the right vehicle are allocated.
Under our Conditions of Carriage, pallets must be sound and of a standard size, and pallet transfer documentation and any pallet hire, loss or transfer charges remain the sender’s responsibility. We do not account for hired pallets unless it has been agreed in writing. If your lane needs something different, ask us about pallet exchange when you request your quote.
To book a pallet, get a quote or call 1300 882 117, Monday to Friday 8:00am to 4:00pm, and tell us the pallet type when you do.
Published by All Freight Carrying, Yandina, Sunshine Coast · 1 November 2026 · Last updated 1 November 2026
