Brazil-JBS-Swift-help from Australia.

BRAZIL

JBS-SWIFT SMITHFIELD GROUP.

The worlds largest pork producer, Smithfield turned to Chep Pallet Pooling Systems, the Australian Giant, to sort out their handling problems and reduce costs last year.Chep will now handle the total production on 40 of the Smithfield outlets, including Smithfield Beef, Butterball, Farmland and John Morrel and Co across the whole of the United States and Canada.

Chep operate from 45 different counties with 285 million pallets out at one time, they have been in Argentina and Brazil since 1998 and in the USA, since 1990.Meat handling has changes enormously in recent years, with everything on pallets today, from cartons in the cold store to cuts of the meat in the cutting room.There are plastic pallets, metal pallets, wooden pallets and even cardboard pallets.

CHEP was short for the Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool, which was set up by the Australian Government in 1945.When World War 11 came to an end, the American forces left behind a lot of very modern handling equipment in Australia that had been used in the South Pacific war.

Most of this equipment was alien to Australia, as in 1945 grain was in hundredweight bags, sand and bricks were carried by hand or in a wheelbarrow and beef and lamb were shipped in carcass form in the frozen holds of vessels and loaded by hand.Hundreds of men took longer to load a vessel in those days than one man on a forklift today.

The government set up the Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool, to use the modern technology in military bases.This proved so successful that the government sold the idea and the name in 1949.

Brambles purchased the company 1n 1958 and they opened in the UK, in 1975.

The CHEP Pallet Pool, has been a tremendous boost to the meat industry, in labor saving and customer service.

Smithfield maintain they will save money and add to productivity with the new contract.

Jack Mandato, the assistant to the President and Director of Strategic sourcing at Smithfield said, "the CHEP system generates significantly less waste, uses less energy and creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions than other common options."