Dutch pallet provider FHG (Eck en Wiel; www.fhg.nl) has recently acquired a majority holding in another Dutch company, Cradle to Cradle Products (C2CP Sittard; www.c2cp.com). The acquisition allows the company formerly known as Faber Halbertsma Group to expand its pallets portfolio with C2CP’s plastic pallets made using recycled local plastic waste flows thus minimising the carbon footprint during production.

The C2CP acquisition is also in line with the Dutch group’s strategy to offer a wide range of sustainable products and services centred on pallets and boxes. FHG's primary activities are in the manufacturing and pooling of wooden pallets. The company intends to add C2CP's plastic pallets to its pooling system for the chemicals sector.

“We have created a continuous life cycle in our pallet pooling activities”, explains Ingrid Faber, CEO at FHG. “Pooling allows pallets to be continually re-used and helps to reduce both the consumption of raw materials and the generation of waste. The re-use of pallets and packaging is a sustainability principle that we hold in high regard.”

This marks the second takeover in the last 14 months by FHG; in January 2012 it acquired PAKi Logistics, a German-based company that specialised in the pool management of standardised load carriers.
Sjra Smeets, a co-director at C2CP, told Plasteurope.com that the company began operations in 2012 developing the design for its recycled plastic pallets together with DSM, also based in Sittard (www.dsm.com). They had 10 employees and had their own grinding operations. The ground stock was sold to a third party. Smeets said that they utilised primarily industry and consumer waste in the production, estimating the amount of annually recycled plastic at roughly 7,000 t/y.