My googling skills are obviously bad, since I can’t seem to find the answer to a simple question. If you go into any warehouse (or warehouse store), you’ll see pallets stacked with merchandise, wrapped all around with some kind of Saran Wrap.
This isn’t the wrap that shrinks with heat - it seems to be from a large roll, that wraps around and around the pallet, sticking to itself and securing the merchandise.
What is this called, and more importantly, can it be purchased by a consumer?
I’ve asked in stores, and all they can tell me is “shrink wrap”, which isn’t what I need.
It is called ‘stretch wrap’ in the industry, I used it for many years.
It is normally applied on a machine where you use a forklift to place a pallet on a turntable, tie a starting amount of wrap to the pallet, and then hit a button.
The pallet rotates as the arm holding the roll of stretch wrap moves up and down. There are tension adjustments to add either more or less stretch pull on the wrap, and speed adjustments to regulate the number of wraps.
There is also a height adjustment where the roll of wrap reaches a certain point and then reverses back down the pallet. You can change these settings to put a light wrap on boxes/bags that don’t weigh very much, or put a nice tight, multi-layer wrap on heavy items so they will not shift in transport.
They are easy to use and with a little experience you can customize the wrap to package any palleted product.
Here is what a stretch wrap machine looks like. You put the pallet of product on the round part, it spins, machine wraps, pallets go into warehouse or onto a truck.