Pallet Inverters

It soon became apparent that pallet inverters could handle loads other than bagged product. The next wave of users were in the general warehousing and distribution field transferring tinned goods from white to Chep rental pallets. The market continued to grow with all the early machines loading at a raised height by forklift truck.

Many coldstores were among the first companies to take up the idea. Broken or poor quality wood pallets present a significant danger if they are put away in the racking system. Frost on the steel racking has led to a number of serious accidents usually triggered by a damaged pallet.

The pallet inverters were sited off the edge of the loading dock so they could be accessed by the same powered pallet trucks which emptied the freezer trailers. Clearly a better solution would be a pallet changer which had a floor-level loading table. Hence the pallet retriever was designed to tip the load on its side and slide the load away by gravity enabling pallet exchange. Where the original pallet inverters were designed with a 2000 kgs capacity, the retriever was rarely required to handle over one tonne.