Plastic crates and bins for growers and packhouses

From the row to the packing line

Pickers fill buckets or totes, tip them into a bin parked between rows, and a tractor or forklift pulls full bins to a trailer. At the packhouse the bins go into cold storage or straight to a dumper. Vents decide how fast field heat leaves the fruit, so that is the first question: vented or solid.

IPL Schoeller, which now sells the Macro Plastics line, gives its MacroBin 12 Full Vent as 1,143 x 1,219 x 432 mm, about 45 x 48 x 17 in. It has sidewall and base vents for airflow and faster field cooling, plus slots that let a packhouse thermofog the load. Deeper bins carry more per lift: the 4848 AgriMax is 47.7 x 47.7 x 28.5 in., which IPL names for citrus, peaches, pears, onions, sweet potatoes and pistachios.

Tender crops go shallower or smaller. IPL calls the MacroBin 16NG Solid, at 47.13 x 47.13 x 21.5 in., ideal for tender fruits and vegetables, and leafy or berry crops often never see a bin at all, riding in hand-held totes instead.

The bins and totes growers buy

Food safety, washing and the avocado bin rule

Makers word food contact carefully, and so do we. IPL says its MacroBin 12 is "Made from FDA materials" and built for high-pressure washing. ORBIS says of its agricultural line that "All products are available in FDA-compliant materials." Those are the makers' statements about resin. Whether a bin passes your buyer's audit depends on its history and your sanitation program, so ask for the maker's documents and tell us what a used bin carried before.

Wood's weak point is cleaning. Food Engineering has reported that growers of savoy spinach replaced wooden bushel baskets, usually thrown out after one use for fear of mold and fungus, with plastic totes washed in a 65-foot, five-stage tunnel in Green Bay, Wis. That pool held almost 300,000 totes.

Bins also wander. In a 2005 final rule under 7 CFR Part 915, USDA barred handlers from moving fresh-market South Florida avocados in 20-bushel plastic field bins to destinations inside the production area, effective November 14, 2005. The industry committee behind it estimated that over 700 bins had gone missing the season before, at more than $100,000 to their owners and about $150 a bin at 2005 prices.

Buying macro bins new or used

New bins come in the model, colour and vent pattern you choose, and that is the time to ask the maker about branding or numbering bins so strays come home. When Macro Plastics launched the MacroBin 29 in 2016, it pitched plastic "at the cost comparable to wood bins" (FreshPlaza, September 2016); today's quote is the only price that counts.

Used bins are sold by footprint first: a 45x48 and a 48x48 don't mix in one cold room row. We say the grade, A, B or C, and what it means for that bin: runner and fork-pocket damage, floor flex, cracked corners, stains. Fruit Growers News reported in 2019 that three empty MacroBin 32NG bins nest in the space of two, which helps when used bins ship to you. See used bulk bins.

For packed product, many shippers rent pooled RPCs rather than own them. Freedonia projected in a 2018 study that U.S. demand for new produce RPCs would grow 7.6% a year to $185 million in 2022, noting they "can make up to 100 trips".

Selling bins when you change sizes

Switching to a deeper bin, a new packhouse dumper or a rental program leaves stacks of older bins behind. We buy them. Send the count, outside size, vented or solid, maker if molded in, condition and the yard address, plus what the bins last held. Orchard states such as Washington and California have their own pages; to sell, start on our harvest bins page.