Unitizing and palletizing prepackaged round-red potatoes for shipment to market

Data were obtained during packaging operations in potato packinghouses, after shipment to market in highway trucks, during unloading at wholesale warehouses, and during marketing at retail stores. These data represent the performance of the packing methods and materials, the cost of labor and materials (excluding trucking) to the shipper, and the quality of the product when handled and shipped with three methods of unitizing and palletizing. The report summarizes the labor, materials, and depreciated special equipment costs/ 16, 330-kg truckload synthesized for three methods, each with two package sizes. The total cost of the strap/angleboard method was about 9%less than that of the paper-baler-bag method for packing and palletizing 2.27-kg consumer packages and about 20%less than that of the paper-baler-bag method for packing and palletizing 4.54-kg consumer packages. The corrugated-fiberboard master container method cost about 28%more than the paper-baler-bag method for packing and palletizing 2.27-kg consumer packages and about 31 %more than the paper-baler-bag method for packing and palletizing 4.54-kg consumer packages.