How a Lockyer Valley broccoli grower maxed field-pack volume and slashed empty-return freight with a 55 L folding vented crate
A Lockyer Valley (SE Queensland) brassica grower.
The operator
This is a broccoli and cauliflower grower in South-East Queensland's Lockyer Valley, cutting for supermarket programmes that move enormous volumes through the peak. Brassica is cut and field-packed straight into the crate in the paddock, then run through pre-cooling and onto a returnable-packaging loop with the retail DCs. When you are shifting that much volume, two costs dominate: how much you can pack per crate, and what it costs to get empty crates back to the block.
The problem with the old handling
They were field-packing into a mix of legacy carton lines and shallower crates. The cartons were single-trip, so every dispatch bought new boxes and paid to landfill them at the DC, and the shallower units capped how much cut product went into each one — a real throughput drag on a crop that moves in huge quantities. Rigid empties also rode back from the DC at full height, occupying full trailer space whether they carried anything or not. On a high-volume brassica programme, both the packaging spend and the empty-return freight were significant.
Why this product
They standardised on the 55 L Folding Vented Plastic Crate (BPB-P6426FV): a 600 x 400 mm footprint, a tall 259 mm external height for a big cut load, moulded from PP at just 2.22 kg, with ergonomic lock handles, cross-stacking and full venting, folding to a 48 mm flat. The tall body takes a big field-pack of cut broccoli, which is exactly the volume the shallower units were costing them. The full venting sheds field heat fast out of the paddock and keeps the load cool through pre-cooling, which matters on a dense, respiring brassica head. It cross-stacks securely for stable palletising, the lock handles speed line packing, and — the decisive feature for a returnable loop — it folds to a 48 mm flat, so empties collapse to roughly a fifth of erected volume for the trip back.
The rollout
They put the 55 L crate straight into field-packing at the start of the cutting season and retired two legacy carton lines onto it. Pickers took to the lock handles quickly, and the tall body let them pack more per crate than the shallow units, lifting throughput at the peak. The venting pulled field heat out fast in the paddock, and the crates cross-stacked cleanly onto pallets for dispatch. On the return leg the crew folded the empties flat and stacked them for backhaul, freeing a large block of trailer space that rigid boxes had been wasting.
The estimated result
We frame the savings as estimates because packaging spend and freight both move with volume, season and how disciplined the return cycle is. Standardising onto one returnable crate and retiring single-trip cartons cuts packaging purchases materially — we estimate on the order of 25-30% lower packaging cost per season once the loop is running. And the fold is the big freight lever: collapsing to 48 mm means empties occupy roughly a fifth of erected volume, which on a high-volume crop we estimate strips around 70% off the empty-return freight versus carting rigid boxes back from the DC. Spread over an assumed multi-year service life and many trips per crate, we estimate the changeover pays back inside a couple of seasons, then keeps returning both the packaging and freight savings on every cycle.