Plastic crates and bulk bins in Mississippi

Poultry, from hatchery to processing plant

Poultry is Mississippi's largest agricultural product by value, about $3.8 billion in 2023, and the state produced about 701.1 million broilers in 2025. Hatcheries, feed mills, grow-out farms and processing plants form one long chain.

The containers that matter are in processing. Plants use stacking crates and meat lugs for parts, combo bins for whole birds and trim, and nestable trays for further-processed products. Crates should nest when empty to save space on the return, lock when stacked full, and wash clean with no ribs or ledges where residue collects.

Upstream of the plants, hatcheries handle eggs and chicks in molded plastic trays and baskets, while feed mills mix and bag rations. These sites buy fewer containers than a processor, but they buy them repeatedly, because trays crack and totes go missing between farms.

Feed mills use solid totes for premixes, vitamins and medicated additives, often color-coded so an operator can't load the wrong ingredient. Grow-out farms keep spare parts, waterers and cleaning supplies in lidded bins that shrug off dust and moisture. These jobs don't need grade A containers; a clean grade B or C unit at a lower price is often the smarter purchase.

What to check before buying lugs and combo bins

Send us the maker and model molded into your current containers, plus photos of the base and rim, and we'll match it or point out how an alternative differs. For used units, tell us what they held before so your quality team can judge. See meat and poultry.

• Low-temperature rating of the resin, if containers go into a chiller or blast freezer
• Floor design: open grid for draining, or solid for liquids
• Rim strength, if bins ride a dumper or tipper
• Color code for raw, cooked and inedible product
• Exact match to your current model, so mixed fleets don't jam stackers
• Documents from the maker on resin; we never call a used container food-grade

Vehicle and engine plants

Nissan builds vehicles in Canton, north of Jackson, and Toyota at Blue Springs, near Tupelo in the northeast. PACCAR opened a $300 million engine plant in Columbus in 2010. Suppliers serving plants like these generally run the AIAG 48x45 bulk footprint; ORBIS lists its 48x45 BulkPak in 17 heights from about 19 to 50 inches, rated around 1,500 to 2,000 lb.

Engine components and castings are heavy, so suppliers look at the dynamic stack rating as much as the static one. A full container on a forklift or trailer experiences far more force than one standing still. Hand-held euro containers handle smaller parts, often with dunnage to keep machined surfaces apart.

Mississippi containers by sector

Sweet potatoes, soybeans and corn

Soybeans led Mississippi crops in 2025 at about $1.07 billion in value of production and corn followed at $650 million, while sweet potatoes added about $108 million. Sweet potatoes are cured and stored for months, so growers want bins with vented walls for airflow, strong floors for dense loads, and runners that keep the bin off a wet floor. Grain handlers buy solid totes and bins for seed and samples.

Freight on I-55, I-20 and I-22

I-55 runs north-south through Jackson, close to Canton, and on to Memphis. I-20 crosses east-west through Jackson and Meridian. I-22 links Tupelo and the Blue Springs area to Birmingham and Memphis, I-59 runs from Meridian toward Hattiesburg and New Orleans, and I-10 follows the Gulf Coast past Gulfport and Pascagoula, which ranked 29th among US ports by 2023 total trade.

A poultry plant reordering a pallet or two of lugs ships LTL. A supplier taking a trailer of collapsibles, or a plant swapping out its combo bin fleet, should price a full truck. If empties travel back to a parts plant in another state, folding pays: PHS Plastic lists a 2:1 return ratio for its 48x40x45 collapsible. See return ratio.

Selling surplus from Mississippi

We buy reusable lugs, combo bins, collapsibles and totes in volume. Tell us the count, model, grade, location and what they carried. Start with how selling works.