The Role of Pallets in Microbial Food Safety

Pallets play an important role in food transportation but are seldom in direct contact with food and are not intended to be used in contact with food. We have surveyed information relevant to the possible influence of wood versus plastic pallets on food safety. Wood absorbs bacteria, which cannot later be recovered alive at its surface. Bacteria do not penetrate below the surface of new plastic and can be transferred to other surfaces. Scars on used plastic tend to harbor bacteria, which persist in a viable state. The choice of wood versus plastic pallets seems likely to have only a slight effect on food safety, but bacteria appear to be less easily transferred from wood than from plastic.