What a closed-loop program looks like.
Imagine 500 gaylords that belong to your program. Each one has a unique barcode stamped on the side. They go from our yard to your facility, from your facility to your customer, and from your customer back to our yard — in a rotation that repeats every two to four weeks. At our yard we inspect, re-tape, swap out damaged units, and dispatch them back out for the next loop.
Who this is for.
- Breweries returning grain bags and empty keg shipping bins.
- Cannabis cultivators cycling cure and storage gaylords between grow and processing.
- Ag producers returning bulk bins between pack house and customer.
- DTC brands building real circular packaging into their shipping story.
- Any company whose boxes come back empty anyway — they should come back to us.
What it costs.
Less than you’re paying for new boxes right now, almost every time. We quote per rotation, with a small program management fee. The bigger and more predictable your loop, the cheaper it gets per unit.
Audits & reporting.
Every loop comes with a quarterly audit of units in circulation, units retired, tonnage avoided and CO₂ saved. The reports drop into our customers’ ESG dashboards directly — ask us about CSV and JSON integrations.
The closed-loop math, in detail.
A closed-loop program with 200 dedicated boxes cycling at 13-day intervals replaces about 56 monthly trips per box per year. Across 200 boxes that’s roughly 11,200 unit-trips annually — the equivalent of buying 11,200 new boxes in a year. At new-box pricing ($28–$34 per unit) that’s $313,000 to $381,000 of replacement cost. The closed-loop alternative typically prices at $130,000 to $170,000 per year for the same capacity, including box rotation, freight, replacement units, and quarterly reporting. The savings are real and they compound year after year because most loops get more efficient as the customer’s receiving and dispatch teams learn how to handle the rotation.
What a closed-loop contract includes.
- A dedicated unit pool of 100–500 gaylords, hand-picked from grade A inventory.
- Unique unit IDs stamped on each box for tracking and replacement attribution.
- A replacement budget that covers 15–25% annual attrition.
- Scheduled bi-weekly or monthly rotations on a fixed day.
- Quarterly impact reporting (units in service, units retired, tonnage avoided, CO₂e).
- An annual contract review with renegotiation rights for both sides.
- An exit clause with reasonable notice requirements.
Onboarding timeline.
Most closed-loop programs take 4–6 weeks from first conversation to first rotation. The timeline breaks down roughly as follows: week one is discovery and proposal; week two is contract signing and unit ID stamping; week three is the first delivery and receiving training; week four is the first return rotation and the first KPI check; weeks five and six are the first quarterly optimization cycle. After that the program runs on autopilot with quarterly reviews.
What goes wrong (and how we fix it).
- Boxes get co-mingled with non-loop inventory. Solution: bright-colored tape on loop stock, plus receiving team training.
- Unit ID stamps fade over time. Solution: re-stamp every 6 months with a more permanent ink.
- Customer scales up faster than the loop can support. Solution: temporary buffer inventory pulled from our general grade-A stock.
- Damaged units accumulate at one facility. Solution: special pickup of damaged units between scheduled rotations.
- Receiving team turnover at customer end. Solution: re-training package and updated SOP documents.
Closed-loop FAQ.
What’s the smallest closed-loop program you’ll set up?
We’ve done 50-unit pools for very small operations, although the math gets thin at that scale. The sweet spot is 150–500 units cycling on a regular schedule. Above 1,000 units we typically split the loop into multiple sub-pools organized by route or facility.
What about annual unit replacement?
Standard contracts assume 15–25% annual attrition. We provide replacements from our general grade-A inventory and the cost is included in the rotation pricing. If your actual attrition is below 15%, we credit unused replacement budget at year end.
Can the same closed-loop pool span multiple facilities?
Yes — multi-facility loops are common for vertically integrated operations. We coordinate the schedule across facilities and track units by location.
What happens if I want to exit the program?
30-day written notice and we’ll wind the loop down. Any remaining loop inventory either gets returned to general stock at our yard or sold to you outright at the prevailing grade-A price.
Do you offer custom KPI reports?
Yes — beyond the standard quarterly impact report we can build custom KPIs (per-facility breakdowns, per-SKU rotation rates, per-route efficiency) for an additional one-time setup fee.