Are plastic pallets actually hygienic enough for food transport or is that just marketing?

  • June 30, 2026 11:37 PM PDT

    This might be a bit specific but I'm hoping there's someone here in the food logistics space who can give me a straight answer. I recently took over my family's catering supply business and we run three refrigerated vans delivering fresh produce and dairy to restaurants around Dubai and Sharjah. The current flooring situation in the vans is honestly embarrassing, old rubber mats that have cuts and cracks where moisture collects and I'm pretty sure that's where the occasional funky smell is coming from despite regular cleaning. Looking at upgrading to something that won't harbor bacteria and I keep coming across crateco who seem to position themselves as a Premium Plastic Pallet manufacturer in UAE with a focus on hygienic solutions for food grade applications. The smooth non porous surface sounds great in theory but I'm wondering if that actually translates to easier sanitation in practice, like can you genuinely just pressure wash these things and they're good to go or do the corners and edges trap gunk over time? Also a bit concerned about how they handle the temperature swings from the chiller unit since the vans cycle between cold during deliveries and ambient temp overnight when parked, don't want to invest in something that's gonna warp in six months.