Case study of Custom Plastic Pallet in the beverage industry
How Heineken Retired Wooden Pallets — and Built a Safer, Lighter, Lower-Cost Keg Transport System
Company Overview
Heineken is one of the world’s largest beer breweries, headquartered in the Netherlands. With a global distribution network and high-volume domestic logistics operations, the efficiency, safety, and reliability of its transport packaging are not minor operational details — they directly affect costs, worker safety, and product integrity at scale. When Heineken identified that its existing pallet solution for 50-litre keg transport was creating recurring operational problems, it turned to Cabka to co-develop a purpose-built alternative.
The Challenge
Heineken had long relied on wooden pallets to transport its 50-litre kegs. While functionally adequate in earlier operations, the wooden pallets were generating a growing list of problems that compounded in cost and complexity as the scale of operations increased.
The issues were both practical and financial. Wood splinters and chips contaminated the working environment and created hygiene and safety risks in a food and beverage context. Pallets absorbed moisture when wet, adding unnecessary weight to every loaded journey and accelerating structural degradation. Repair costs were high and unavoidable — wood breaks, splinters, and deteriorates under the repeated stress of heavy keg loads and mechanical handling. And at end of life, disposal added further cost without any material recovery.
Heineken’s requirements for a new solution were clear and demanding: reduced cost per cycle, significantly greater durability, improved process reliability, maximum occupational safety, simplified cleaning, and the lowest possible tare weight. No off-the-shelf pallet could satisfy all six criteria simultaneously for a 50-litre keg — so Heineken commissioned a custom development.
The Solution
Cabka developed the Keg S9 (OD-6R) in close collaboration with Heineken — a custom plastic pallet engineered from the ground up around the specific demands of transporting eight 50-litre kegs per pallet. Every design decision was made in service of the six requirements Heineken had set out.
The pallet is manufactured using a gas-injection moulding procedure, which creates internal cavities within the plastic structure. This technique produces a pallet that is exceptionally resistant to bending — a critical property when pallets are stored in high-bay racking systems — while keeping the overall tare weight as low as possible. The result is a pallet that is strong where it needs to be, and light everywhere else.
Key features of the Keg S9 include:
- Centre rings for keg positioning — purpose-designed locators hold each of the eight 50-litre kegs securely in the correct position throughout transport and handling, preventing shifting and reducing damage risk
- Rubber inserts under the blocks — providing high slip resistance on the underside of the pallet, improving safety during mechanical handling and storage
- 19.5 mm safety rim — a structural perimeter rim that prevents kegs from rolling or sliding off the edge of the pallet during loading, unloading, or transit
- Gas-injection construction with internal cavities — exceptional bending resistance for use in high-bay racks, combined with a tare weight of just 25.5 kg despite a static load capacity of 4,500 kg
- 4,500 kg static / 1,500 kg dynamic / 1,500 kg racking load capacity — engineered to handle the full demands of keg transport, stacking (14 pallets per stack), and high-bay racking without deflection or failure
- Open top deck with 6-runner base — four-way entry for forklift and pallet truck access, with an open deck design that simplifies cleaning and drainage in a brewery environment
- 336 pallets per truck — optimised dimensions of 1,210 × 1,110 × 153 mm maximise transport density, contributing directly to lower logistics costs per cycle
- Optional RFID and IoT integration — transponders can be embedded for asset tracking and logistics management, with individual marking and labelling also available
Heineken reviewed the complete solution and found it convincing across all six of its stated requirements. The company subsequently switched its keg transportation operations in the Netherlands to the Keg S9.
The Results
The transition from wooden pallets to the Keg S9 addressed every one of Heineken’s original requirements:
- Reduced cost per cycle — the Keg S9’s long service life and elimination of ongoing repair and disposal costs associated with wooden pallets delivers a meaningfully lower total cost per transport cycle over time
- Significantly greater durability — plastic construction with internal structural cavities resists the impact, bending, and degradation that constantly damaged and retired wooden pallets, extending asset life considerably
- Improved process reliability — consistent pallet dimensions and structural integrity mean predictable, repeatable performance across every handling and storage operation, reducing variability and disruption in the logistics flow
- Maximum occupational safety — the elimination of wood splinters and chips removes a persistent hygiene and injury risk from the working environment, while the safety rim, keg locators, and rubber slip-resistance inserts actively prevent keg movement and handling accidents
- Simplified cleaning — the open deck design and smooth plastic surfaces are far easier to clean and sanitise than wood, an important advantage in a food-grade brewery environment
- Lowest possible tare weight — at 25.5 kg, the gas-injection-moulded Keg S9 achieves exceptional strength-to-weight performance, reducing the dead weight carried on every journey compared to heavier alternatives
Key Takeaways
- Wood’s hidden costs accumulate at scale: Repair, disposal, contamination, and weight penalties may seem manageable individually, but across a high-volume brewery logistics operation they create a compelling case for a switch to purpose-built plastic — particularly when the plastic solution is co-designed rather than off-the-shelf.
- Manufacturing technique shapes performance: The gas-injection moulding process — creating internal cavities within the pallet structure — was the engineering choice that delivered bending resistance for high-bay racks and low tare weight simultaneously. Specification-driven manufacturing matters.
- Safety is a design outcome, not an add-on: Centre rings, a safety rim, and rubber slip-resistance inserts were built into the Keg S9 from the start, not retrofitted. When occupational safety is a stated requirement, it needs to be engineered in — not addressed with workarounds.
- Co-development produces solutions that actually fit: No standard pallet could have met all six of Heineken’s requirements at once. Working directly with the customer to understand the specific load, environment, and handling conditions produced a result that a catalogue selection never could.
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