BLUE ISLAND, Illinois – Harvey Pallets, the growing pallet business owned and operated by the Tavarez family, has completed the installation of three new pieces of equipment that will help the company keep pace with supplying new and recycled pallets to customers across the country.
The company, launched by Manuel Tavarez in 1997, recently deployed a new pallet sorting station supplied by Alliance Automation, a new Voyager nailing machine from Viking Engineering, and a new Woodpecker nailing machine from Midwest Machinery & Automation. This machinery boosts capacity while providing the flexibility needed to supply various new and recycled pallet customers.
The company’s headquarters facilities are located in Blue Island, Illinois where it has two plants only a block apart. It has two more pallet plants in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, and two more near Des Moines, Iowa. Harvey Pallets has sawmills located in Centerville and Winona, Missouri, and pallet plants attached to the mills. The company’s operations employ about 300 people across the country.
“We’ve been very blessed to continue growing, and we’re looking forward to further growth in the southern and western states,” said Alejandro Tavarez, one of Manuel’s sons and vice president of strategy & procurement officer.
“We like to be a one-stop-shop pallet solution for customers,” said Miguel Tavarez, another son, director of operations.
Manuel, 54, CEO, has five sons, and the four oldest are involved in the business.
The family declined to disclose revenues. However, the Blue Island plants, their biggest facilities, ship an average of 30-40 full truckloads of pallets daily.
At Blue Island, which is south of Chicago and less than 20 miles from the city’s beautiful Magnificent Mile section, one plant is devoted to manufacturing new pallets; the other produces about 70% recycled pallets and 30% new. In addition, both plants have workers who are trained and skilled at assembling custom pallets.
Harvey Pallets serves customers in a wide range of industries: automotive, oil, minerals, grocery, agriculture, pharmaceutical, logistics and more. The company manufactures more than 250 different new, recycled, remanufactured and combo pallets – stringer, block, two-way, four-way, and so on. Sizes range from as small as 18×32 up to 200×62. It welcomes the opportunity to supply specialized and complex custom pallet solutions. “We are set up in a way that allows us to optimize our production at an efficient and competitive rate,” said Alejandro. The company also provides some pallet management services for CHEP.
Like other pallet suppliers that recycle pallets, the company stages trailer vans at customer locations to be filled with surplus and damaged pallets. Loads typically are a mix of pallet footprints as well as white-wood pallets, CHEP and PECO pallets.
At Blue Island, pallets are off-loaded and taken directly to the new Alliance Automation sorting station. “We’re constantly feeding it,” said Miguel. The system’s speed has been a “game-changer” for the company.
The sorting station includes a tipper and a continuous feed accumulator. It has seven stackers. The station requires only one worker who visually inspects each pallet and routes it to the appropriate stacker with the push of a button.
The decision to choose Alliance to supply the sorting system was a gradual one that began about two years ago. It involved several trips to the Alliance Automation plant. Alliance customer service is “next level,” said Alejandro. “It was a no-brainer to go with Alliance.” The company also has two Industrial Resources pallet sorting systems.
The company added the Voyager – Viking Engineering’s most advanced pallet nailing machine – and the Woodpecker to keep pace with production requirements. “We’re fortunate to have steady growth in these difficult times,” said Miguel, who anticipates continued growth in 2025 despite the challenges.
The company has a long-standing relationship with Viking that goes back to 2000, when it invested in its first Viking nailer. “The Voyager is a phenomenal machine, excellent for new pallets,” said Alejandro.
The Viking Voyager features S3 board positioning, dual board hoppers, an enhanced FMS package, updated nail delivery system and more. It can produce 2,400-plus pallets per shift, according to Viking.
positioning, dual board hoppers, an enhanced FMS package, updated nail delivery system and more.
The relationship with Midwest Machinery & Automation, which markets and sells the Woodpecker line of nailers, has not been as long, although Harvey Pallet owns a handful of the Woodpecker machines. The company purchased its first Woodpecker machine in 2015. “They are efficient, easy maintenance… The price point was very appealing, too,” said Miguel. The Woodpeckers are used to assemble pallets with new lumber as well as pallets made from a combination of new and recycled components. “We like the flexibility that the Woodpeckers provide,” said Alejandro.
Scrap material from the various facilities is collected and supplied to other companies that grind it into various wood fiber products.
The two sawmills have been an important ingredient to the company’s success. They provide about 70% of the pallet lumber the company needs, and the company strategically purchases cut stock to make up the difference.
The company buys timber two and three years in advance. That enables it to offer stable prices to customers, noted Miguel. During the COVID pandemic, “We were one of the last companies to raise prices for new pallets because we have strategically locked in our rates across several million acres of standing timber…Not every pallet company can do that.”
Manuel, 54, still goes to work at 5 a.m. and is at work for 10 hours. “He’s slowing down a bit,” joked Alexjandro.
Manuel started Harvey Pallet in Harvey, Illinois, in 1997 with one forklift and six employees. The company moved two years later and in 2003 acquired its first sawmill in Missouri. It moved to Blue Island in 2005 when it outgrew its facility and added a second Blue Island plant in 2012. It acquired a second sawmill in Missouri in 2015 and built the company’s first pallet plant in Missouri in 2022.
Harvey Pallets also has partner facilities all over North America. In total, it now operates in over 1,500,000 square feet of indoor warehousing, providing supply chain solutions across the country.
“We’re not scared to invest in new technology,” said Manuel, whether it’s saws, sorting lines, or other automation. “I’m always ahead of the game.” The key question when considering investment in equipment is: how much will it increase production capacity?
“We’re constantly looking for innovation,” added Alejandro. They were planning a trip to the Ligna trade show in Germany in May to look at the latest wood processing equipment.
“We’re very happy with the results,” said Alejandro, of the recent investments in equipment. “They’ve got us to a point where we can be incredibly competitive in the Midwest and provide value to all our customers across the country.”
