C & D South West is proud to be a founding member of the Palletforce distribution network, one of the UK’s leaders in the express distribution of palletised freight. The Association of Pallet Networks (APN) has released its official performance statistics for the first quarter of 2025, revealing a strong and encouraging start to the year across the entire UK pallet sector.
A total of over 7.2 million pallets were delivered by the UK’s eight major pallet networks between January and March 2025, representing a 3.4% increase in total volumes compared to the same period in 2024.
Paul Sanders, Chairman of the APN, commented: “It has been an excellent start to the year for the UK’s pallet networks and a healthy indicator for the economy as a whole. The growth has been relatively consistent across all services and pallet sizes, which suggests a strong uplift in consumer and business demand.”
In the first quarter of 2025, next-day delivery volumes grew by 3.5% and economy services rose by 3.0%, compared to Q1 2024. As of the end of March, next-day services made up 61.1% of all deliveries, with economy accounting for 38.9%. This represents a slight shift back toward economy services from the previous year’s preference for next-day.
Home deliveries also saw a notable increase, accounting for 15.3% of all pallet movements, up four percentage points from Q1 2024.
Growth was observed across all pallet sizes: full pallets rose by 3.8%, half pallets by 3.7%, and quarter pallets by 1.6%. These increases reflect growing confidence and demand across all sectors served by the UK’s pallet networks.
Service levels remained exceptionally high, with 96.5% of consignments delivered on time, in full, and intact, demonstrating continued operational excellence despite significant network volume increases.
Safety also remains a key focus within the sector. Following a slight increase in incidents during 2024, Q1 2025 saw a record-breaking 26.7% reduction in incidents compared to the same period last year, with an average of just 0.3 incidents per 100,000 pallets delivered. This was bolstered by the networks’ continued commitment to initiatives like Health and Safety at Work Week, held in April.
C & D South West’s Managing Director, Lorna Hammond, said: “We’re encouraged to see a strong start to 2025 for the palletised freight sector. The consistent growth and the continued emphasis on both service and safety reflect the values we share at C & D South West. We remain committed to supporting our customers with dependable, efficient pallet distribution across the South West.”
