How do you safely handle hundreds of banana boxes full of groceries?

The Problem 

At a large east coast grocery chain, the stores must handle merchandise that needs to be “reclaimed” or returned on a daily basis. Items include all types of groceries from canned goods, to bottles, to cartons and cases that are out of date, damaged or even subject to a recall by the original supplier. Each individual supermarket collects these goods and packs them into empty banana boxes for return to the chain’s central distribution center.  

At the distribution center the palletized banana boxes are unloaded at a staging or sorting area. The pallets are typically four layers high with six boxes per layer for a total of 24 boxes per pallet. Each box, weighing up to 40 lbs., must be manually removed from the pallets and placed on a sorting platform where employees sort the individual grocery items by hand into three categories. 

1. Returned to original supplier 

2. Donated to local charities 

3. Recycled or discarded 

This is a huge manual material handling task. On a typical day a worker may move dozens of boxes from the pallet to the sorting table. That can translate into workers lifting thousands of pounds over the course of a shift, in addition to all of the bending, stretching and postural issues involved. workers lifting thousands of pounds over the course of a shift, not to mention all of the bending, stretching and postural issues. 

The Solution 

To minimize the risk of worker injury and to alleviate fatigue, the retailer’s management team has invested in ergonomic equipment.

The solution involves the purchase of a hydraulic lift table with a large 40” x 48” platform. The 2,000-pound capacity lift will position the boxes vertically so workers can access them without bending or stretching. 

In operation, the entire pallet load is placed onto the lift. Workers sort items from each box and as each layer of boxes is removed the lift is raised placing the next layer of boxes at a comfortable height for easy access. 

Additionally, the lift is equipped with a turntable platform that allows workers to easily rotate the pallet so they can access each box from the nearside without reaching out across, or walking around the pallet. 

The addition of this versatile ergonomic device has made work at the grocery chain faster, safer, and easier.