Aug 1, 2009 2:20 PM

Great Lakes Cheese is experiencing productivity and customer service improvements and is lowering its impact on the environment by shipping most of its products on pallets from CHEP, the pallet and container pooling company.

The company now transports its private label and branded cheeses from its facilities in Hiram OH; Plymouth, Wausau, and La Crosse WI; Fillmore UT; and Cuba NY to supermarkets, wholesalers, foodservice distributors, and wholesale clubs across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico on CHEP pallets.

Great Lakes Cheese started the shift from limited-use whitewood pallets to the CHEP pallet pooling program in 2003 to meet requests from retail and wholesale customers. Over the next four years, the company moved six of its plants onto the CHEP program, experiencing improvements in pallet administration and customer relations.

Based on third-party Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis findings, through its use of the CHEP pooling system as opposed to limited-use whitewood pallets, Great Lakes Cheese is reducing solid-waste generation by about 8.4 million pounds per year, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 58%, and saving enough energy to power 700 homes with electricity every year. Visit www.chep.com for more information.