Using Colored Pallet Wrap

Finding the right stretch film for your packaging line is a crucial part of optimizing your supply chain. Even something as simple as the color of your stretch wrap can completely change the way you move and handle product loads. That’s why many companies choose colored stretch films to wrap their pallets.

For the most part, colored stretch film functions in the exact same way as standard stretch wrap. It’s still a plastic film that stretches and wraps around product loads to stabilize them and secure them to a pallet. As such, colored stretch film is ideal for wrapping pallets so that you can move them safely through the supply chain. However, the unique coloring also makes it useful for color coding products, protecting loads, and promoting consistent branding.

The biggest reason to use colored stretch film is to color code your product loads. By adding a rainbow of stretch film colors to your inventory, you can label each individual pallet in a way that is fast and easy to identify.

Organization is a major challenge for distribution centers and warehouses. An unorganized system creates bottlenecks, missing loads, and other issues that cost you a significant amount of time and money. Disorganization can also eat up your free space and make it difficult for workers to move products safely and efficiently through your facility.

When workers can determine crucial information about a pallet load just by glancing at it, you can move products through your facility with greater speed and accuracy. Color coding brings a new level of organization to your workflow so that you can speed up processes, optimize inventory management, and minimize misplaced orders and other mistakes.

Color Coding by Product: Colored stretch film allows you to color code different product loads. This ability is extremely useful for facilities that handle a wide range of product types every day. You can also keep track of priority products or time- or temperature-sensitive loads by color coding them. For example, if a grocery distributor wraps all their frozen loads in blue, then stores will know to unload blue pallets into the freezer as soon as they arrive. Being able to identify product types immediately helps keep pallets moving smoothly through the supply chain.

Improving Tamper Evidence: Color coding isn’t the only benefit of using colored stretch films, it can also help with supply chain security by acting as tamper-evident packaging. For example, using black film will prevent people from seeing what products are wrapped in the pallet. Many pharmaceutical companies use this process. Colored stretch wrap is also less common and harder to come by than standard stretch film. This means that thieves or other parties with ill intentions will have a harder time re-wrapping pallets accurately after stealing from or otherwise tampering with them. As a result, tampering is more immediately obvious, which allows you to act quickly to catch the guilty party and/or prevent the issue from happening again.

Opaque Film Improves Product Protection: Some colored stretch films come in opaque colors, usually in black or white options. Opaque colored stretch film creates a solid color that offers extra protection for the product load. The opaque color is more resistant to UV rays than clear stretch film, which helps protect products from the sun. Additionally, white opaque stretch film can offer enhanced heat protection for temperature-sensitive goods such as food and beverage products. Opaque-colored stretch film also obscures pallet loads and hides the products, creating an extra level of privacy and security throughout the supply chain.

Branding With Colored Stretch Film: Colored stretch film also presents a useful branding opportunity for your business. Whether you use brand colors or order custom stretch film featuring your company logo, you can use colored stretch wrap to mark your pallets as property of your business. This added layer of branding creates consistency among your products and makes your pallets instantly recognizable to distributors. Additionally, improving brand recognition with colored stretch wrap brings a sense of exclusivity to your products.