Plastic crates and bulk bins in Arkansas

Retail vendors in the northwest corner

Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville and Tyson Foods in Springdale, a few miles apart along I-49. Vendors selling into a big retail supply chain often keep offices, consolidation space and third-party logistics partners close to their customer.

Returnable totes are the workhorse there. Nest-stack totes carry store replenishment and each-picks, then nest on the trip back to save space. Attached-lid containers close with interleaving flaps and take a zip tie, so a full tote can't spill or be raided between the DC and the store. Many programs specify the tote by outside footprint and color so it fits a conveyor and is easy to spot. If you're shipping into a particular retail program, send its packaging spec and we'll match the box to it.

Poultry country

Arkansas produced about 1.05 billion broilers and 21.5 million turkeys in 2025, by USDA NASS figures, which puts poultry processing at the center of the state's food economy. Processing plants use stacking crates and meat lugs for parts, combo bins for whole birds and trim, and nestable trays for further-processed product.

Buyers look for smooth walls, drainable floors, resin that stays tough in a chiller and a blast freezer, and colors that separate raw, cooked and inedible streams. A plant that already runs a model needs a near-identical match, because mixed crates jam stackers and dumpers. On used containers for product contact, we never claim food-grade: ask the maker's documents and tell us what the box held before. See meat and poultry.

Sizing totes for conveyors and store backrooms

A tote that works in the DC can still fail in the store. Conveyor width, the spacing of side guides and the diverter type limit what footprint can run; a tote that's too narrow skews on rollers, and one that's too tall jams at a photo-eye. In a store backroom, shelf depth and a stocker's reach matter just as much.

The common hand-held size is about 24x16, with heights that vary by maker and model. Taller totes hold more but get heavy when full, so programs often cap the loaded weight for ergonomic reasons. Lids that interleave rather than snap on survive rough handling better and can't get lost. Tell us the conveyor width, the maximum height and the loaded weight your program allows, and we'll shortlist totes that fit.

Arkansas sectors and containers

Rice and row crops in the Delta

Soybeans led Arkansas crops in 2025 at about $1.50 billion in value of production, with rice second at about $874 million. The state has about 37,000 farms on 13.6 million acres.

Grain moves loose in hoppers, but mills, dryers and seed companies still use plastic. Solid-wall bulk bins hold milled rice, broken grains or seed lots without sifting through vents, and lidded totes keep samples dry. Bins that will be tipped by a dumper need a reinforced rim and a base that the dumper clamps can grip.

Freight across Arkansas

I-40 crosses the state from Fort Smith through Little Rock to West Memphis, I-30 runs southwest from Little Rock toward Texarkana and Dallas, I-55 skirts the northeast corner past West Memphis, and I-49 connects Fort Smith with the Bentonville and Springdale area.

A vendor topping up a few pallets of totes ships LTL, and terminals in Northwest Arkansas handle a lot of that traffic. A poultry plant replacing a fleet of lugs or combo bins should price a full trailer. Nested totes and folded collapsibles fit far more units per truck than rigid bins; PHS Plastic, for one, lists 88 of its 48x40x45 collapsibles per 53-foot trailer assembled and 128 folded. Our trailer loads guide explains the math.

Selling surplus from Arkansas

Retail programs change tote specs, and processors move to new bin models. Either way, usable containers pile up. We buy totes, lugs, bins and collapsibles in volume. Send count, size, color, grade, location and what they held. Start at sell totes and crates.