Budget and Spending: Redesigning Shipping Containers To Reduce
Food Costs CED-78-81, Apr 28, 1978 The cost of food distribution
is an important element in food costs. Processed and fresh
products for retail sale are transported in shipping containers
to their destinations. The variety of container sizes and shapes
has made it difficult to develop efficient handling techniques.
Modularization, a concept that geometrically relates food
shipping container sizes to one another, offers a way of
reducing food costs. This concept has been used in European
countries with good results, but little has been done in the
United States to implement such standardization. If used, it
would permit more efficient transportation and handling of
goods, eliminating wasted space and resulting in less damage to
goods. Because of diverse package sizes and large capital
investments in the packaging industry, modularization can
involve high initial equipment costs, but costs can be reduced
as size changes are coordinated with new prod