CHEP vs Loscam: What Actually Differs
CHEP and Loscam are Australia's two pooled-pallet operators, and both work on the same hire-and-return idea. Choosing between them matters less than most businesses expect; managing the account you end up with matters a great deal more.
Last updated 2026-08-24
Two pools running the same model
CHEP and Loscam both hire out pallets rather than sell them. A business opens an account, pays for pallets while stock sits on them, and is expected to return an equivalent pallet to the pool rather than the exact one it received. Neither operator expects a business to keep a specific physical pallet; the account tracks a running balance, not individual assets.
The pallets themselves are identifiable at a glance, CHEP's are commonly blue, Loscam's red, but colour is where the meaningful difference mostly ends. Both run the same pooling model, and both depend on the same thing to work: an accurate record of when a pallet physically changes hands.
| CHEP | Loscam | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical pallet colour | Blue | Red |
| Core model | Hired per movement, tracked to an account | Hired per movement, tracked to an account |
| Commonly seen in | Grocery and FMCG supply chains | Beverage, produce and general industrial supply chains |
How a hire account is meant to work
The theory is a clean exchange at every dock. A driver delivering a full pallet takes back an equivalent empty one, or the transfer gets logged in the operator's system so the account balance moves with the goods instead of staying with whoever last held the physical pallet. Either way, the pallet is meant to stop being your liability the moment it genuinely leaves your control.
That handover point is exactly where the theory and the receiving dock in practice tend to part ways. A busy unload, an uncollected load, or a driver in a hurry can all mean the exchange happens physically but never gets recorded anywhere.
Why you get billed for a pallet you thought you had passed on
The recurring pain point businesses describe is not the hire fee itself, it is this exact gap. A pallet does not stop counting against your account just because it physically left the building. If the transfer was not logged, an unsigned docket, a load collected without a scan, a system transfer nobody actually completed, the operator's records keep showing the pallet against your name, sometimes for months, until an audit or a reconciliation exercise catches it.
Small businesses in particular report receiving invoices for pallets they discarded, gave away, or handed on well before the bill arrived, with the account never having reflected what actually happened on the floor. It is a well-known enough pattern that a small industry of pallet account auditors exists specifically to check CHEP and Loscam invoices against what a business can actually document, which says something about how often the records and the reality drift apart.
Reconciliation is the actual skill
Picking a pallet colour is not the decision that determines whether this goes well. The decision that matters is whether every pallet movement gets recorded at the point it happens, ideally by scan or signed docket, rather than estimated later from memory. A business that treats pallet transfers with the same discipline as any other stock movement rarely gets an account surprise; one that treats the pallet as an afterthought behind the goods on it usually does.
This matters more, not less, once a pallet jack or walkie is moving dozens of pallets across a dock in a single shift, because that is exactly the volume at which an unrecorded transfer becomes routine rather than exceptional. A storage position holding a pallet that has already been invoiced elsewhere is also just a position doing double duty in two systems that disagree with each other.
Running both, or switching pools
Plenty of businesses end up running accounts with both operators, because different trading partners specify different pools and there is rarely a way to insist on one. That is an extra reconciliation stream to manage, not a reason to avoid either operator.
Switching pools entirely, or dropping pooled pallets for owned whitewood stock, is a bigger decision usually made at a moment the business is already reassessing its operation, like planning a move to a new site, rather than as a standalone project.
Common questions
- Is CHEP or Loscam cheaper to use?
- This page does not state a comparative rate; current commercial terms vary and should be confirmed directly with each provider rather than assumed from general reading.
- Can I return a Loscam pallet through a CHEP account, or vice versa?
- No. They are separate pools with separate accounts. A pallet from one operator does not get credited against the other's balance.
- Who is liable if a pallet transfer never gets logged?
- In practice, the operator's records keep showing the pallet against whoever last had it logged as holding it, regardless of where the pallet has physically ended up.
- Does a pallet account need to be reconciled as often as stock?
- It is worth treating with the same seriousness. Pallets drift out of an account the same way stock drifts out of a count, through untracked movement rather than one dramatic loss.
Part of our guide to warehouse systems and processes.