European EPAL/EURO Wood Pallets, 800x1200 & 1000x1200mm

Specifications

Manufacturing at our own sawmill

Every EPAL/EURO pallet that leaves our facility goes through sawing, drying, cutting to size, assembly and nailing that we carry out ourselves, without subcontracting production to a third party. We start from Galician pine, grade the pieces for dimension and structural behaviour, and cut them to the exact deckboard and block sizes the EPAL block design calls for: nine blocks, five top deckboards and three bottom boards in the standard configuration. Nailing follows the pattern and the helical-shank nail gauge typical of this pallet type, aimed at the resistance to un-nesting and racking twist a pallet needs when it is going to pass through many hands and many load-unload cycles. Before a batch is signed off we check squareness, flatness and edge finish, because a warped pallet or one with loose splinters causes problems both on the forklift and on the customer's own racking.

Working with our own timber, rather than buying finished pallets to resell, gives us room to adjust delivery times to order volume and to handle format variations without depending on a third party's stock. We can schedule production in batches for customers with regular outbound shipments, so pallet supply does not become a bottleneck inside their own logistics chain. Typical production lead times range from a few days for small standard orders to several weeks for larger volumes or orders combined with other items from our catalogue, such as the Galician sawn pine timber we also produce for customers ordering sawn timber and pallets in the same shipment.

Materials and wood behaviour

Galician pine is the base species for our EPAL/EURO pallets because of its local availability, its favourable strength-to-weight ratio, and its predictable behaviour under drying and nailing. We work the timber within an indicative moisture range of around 18-22% at assembly, a level aimed at limiting later movement in the piece — cracking, warping or loosening at the nail joints — without adding the cost of kiln-drying regimes more typical of structural construction timber. We reject pieces with loose knots, bark inclusions or excessive curvature at the sorting stage, since that kind of defect is usually what later shows up as split boards or broken blocks in service.

Load capacity for an EPAL/EURO pallet depends on both species and block design: under normal use, this format handles static loads in the range of several tonnes and meaningfully lower dynamic loads, with the exact margin depending on the pallet's condition, how the load is distributed, and how many use cycles it has already been through. We do not quote load figures as a fixed guarantee, since real-world performance depends on how each customer actually uses the pallet, but we do select timber and set up nailing to withstand the handling a pallet normally gets in a logistics chain: stacking, forklift handling and rotation through different warehouses. If your operation handles especially heavy or irregular loads, let us know when ordering — we can adjust block spacing or deckboard thickness within what the standard allows, or suggest a custom solution instead.

Dimensional and quality standards

The EPAL/EURO pallet is defined by very specific measurements and tolerances, and it is precisely that standardisation that lets it move without friction between companies in different countries. We build the two footprints most in demand across the European market, 800x1200mm and 1000x1200mm, in four-way entry (usable from any side with a counterbalance forklift or pallet truck) and two-way entry, depending on what each customer needs. Production follows the dimensions, deckboard thickness, block layout and nailing pattern set out by the EPAL/UIC block-pallet system, so the finished pallet is compatible with handling equipment and racking already sized for this standard in any European warehouse. You can check the technical detail of the system directly at EPAL - European Pallet Association.

Before a batch ships, we check each unit against the format's dimensional tolerances — height, squareness, spacing between blocks — because a small deviation can be enough to keep a pallet from fitting properly into automated picking racking or a truck slot calculated to the millimetre. This attention to detail matters especially when a pallet is going to pass through several hands inside the European pool, where any unit carrying the EUR mark is expected to behave the same way in every warehouse.

When a customer needs something outside these two standard sizes — a different footprint, a different load capacity, reinforced blocks or specific finishes — we also build custom-made wood pallets under the same process controls, so a different format does not mean giving up the build quality of a proper Euro pallet.

Use cases by industry

The EPAL/EURO pallet is used across almost every sector moving palletised goods within Europe, but some rely on it as the de facto standard in daily operations. Food and grocery distribution uses it heavily because of its compatibility with the exchange systems run by major buying groups; the automotive and components industry uses it in supply flows between plants in different countries; the beverage and winery sector uses it for both raw materials and bottled product ready for export; and agricultural cooperatives use it during harvest season to move crates and containers of fresh produce to central markets and export destinations.

Building materials warehouses and industrial hardware suppliers buy it too, since they need a load carrier able to take irregular loads — bagged product, profile crates, sacked materials — without losing flatness, as do logistics operators and freight forwarders who manage their own pallet fleets and need a steady supply of replacement units as their stock wears down through use. Across all these cases the appeal of the EPAL/EURO format is the same: anyone in a warehouse knows what to expect from it, with no need for extra instructions on how to stack or move it.

• Grocery and general distribution logistics
• Food industry and wineries
• Automotive and industrial components
• Agricultural and horticultural cooperatives
• Building materials warehouses
• Logistics operators and freight forwarders
• Manufacturers exporting palletised goods within the EU

Sustainability and forestry sourcing

The timber we use comes from Galician pine forests, part of a regional forestry tradition going back generations of managing woodland as a working resource. Sourcing from forests near our sawmill in Berdoias cuts down transport of raw material before processing and lets us know first-hand where the wood entering each batch of pallets comes from.

Our sourcing and process approach is aligned with the sustainable forest management principles promoted by frameworks such as FSC and PEFC — sensible use of woodland, avoiding over-harvesting the same plot, favouring regrowth — though we do not advertise a formal chain-of-custody certification we do not hold; we would rather be upfront about that and talk about a way of working aligned with those principles, not a certification badge. For customers whose procurement policy requires justifying packaging sustainability up their own supply chain, we can share whatever origin and process information we have available for a given order, including where the timber came from and how it was processed at our facility.

The EPAL/EURO format itself also helps reduce packaging impact compared with single-use alternatives: circulating within an exchange pool, a pallet typically goes through several load cycles before being retired, and when it is eventually retired the timber can often be repurposed as raw material for other uses rather than going straight to waste.

Export and logistics across Europe

We ship EPAL/EURO pallets from Galicia to customers in Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Ireland, alongside orders within Spain. Within the EU, the EPAL pool system itself simplifies exchange: a customer can return equivalent pallets instead of buying every unit outright, which makes return logistics simpler than with single-use packaging. Even so, each business arranges that exchange with its own trading partners, so it is worth agreeing the details with your customer or logistics operator up front, so pallet replenishment does not become a friction point in the commercial relationship.

For shipments to destinations outside the EU — the UK post-Brexit, Switzerland, or other non-EU markets — packaging timber has to meet the phytosanitary treatment required under the international ISPM 15 standard, with visible marking stamped on the pallet itself. We also produce the ISPM 15 heat-treated export pallets variant for these cases, heat-chambered to eliminate wood pests before dispatch, and we prepare the paperwork typically requested at customs. You can review the technical background of this standard at the ISPM 15 overview on Wikipedia. We work with common delivery terms such as EXW, FOB or delivered, depending on volume and destination country, and we handle shipping documentation in Spanish and English to speed up customs clearance and receipt at the customer's warehouse. For recurring orders we usually agree a delivery schedule with the customer that fits their own dispatch rhythm, rather than treating each shipment as a one-off order.

Why choose Maderas Caamaño

We are a family-run sawmill, not a middleman reselling pallets built by someone else: we control the process from raw timber through to the finished pallet, which gives us room to adjust format, volume and lead time to each specific order. We carry decades of forestry tradition and hands-on work with Galician pine in the Vimianzo area, and that experience with the material shows up in a well-built pallet, with timber selection and nailing set up for the handling it will actually get in a logistics chain. Because production stays in-house, questions about a specific order — a tight deadline, an unusual quantity, a query about a particular batch — go straight to the people actually cutting and assembling the pallets, rather than through a reseller relaying messages to someone else's factory.

We handle both one-off orders and recurring supply agreements, and can combine standard EPAL/EURO pallets, custom pallets and sawn timber in the same shipment, which simplifies logistics for customers buying several timber references at once. That combination matters for buyers who are consolidating freight from Galicia and would rather deal with one supplier and one delivery note than split an order across several vendors. If your operation needs a supplier with in-house production capacity, format flexibility and real experience exporting pallets across Europe, Maderas Caamaño can fit your volume and delivery schedule.

Applications & uses

• Grocery and general distribution logistics
• Food industry and wineries
• Automotive and industrial components
• Agricultural and horticultural cooperatives
• Building materials warehouses
• Logistics operators and freight forwarders
• Palletised export within the EU

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Frequently asked questions