Volumes in UK pallet networks held up well in the third quarter, falling just 0.3% year on year, despite the impact of the viral pandemic.
Latest figures from the Association of Pallet Networks (APN) also showed that economy volumes were up 18% to the end of September and total volumes during the month increased by 16%.
Quarter pallets increased by 9.6% compared to Q3 2019 and APN chairman Paul Sanders said this was perhaps symptomatic of the increase in home deliveries.
He said the recent growth had boosted confidence in the sector, but that operations were being further complicated by different levels of regional restrictions.
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“Service levels have remained high throughout the membership,” Sanders said.
“Over 96.1% of pallets are delivered within their service criteria across all networks.
“Furthermore, member trunk trailer utilisation consistently exceeded an average 73% in
2020.”
He added: “This has been an unprecedented year for the nation and our members.
“In January 2020 everyone was forecasting a difficult trading period, but nobody foresaw the situation we’ve had!”
