Disclosure: I run one of the largest wooden pallet manufacturing companies in the United States. My family has been in this business for 50+ years.
Your perspective on whitewood comes from a 3rd tier perspective (grocery, as you say). In other words your various suppliers buy their pallets from various sources and then ship their product into you on those pallets. You and your (former?) employer are not directly involved in their procurement so you have little say in what you get, and I'm sure the quality varies widely.
That being said whitewood pallets (or just wooden as we would say) are actually a very cost effective and reliable way to ship product in the US, much more so than plastic. There are many quality manufacturers around the entire nation that provide great product and service, much better than your experience seems to suggest. Plastic is expensive to buy, more expensive to lose, and has various other problems and concerns.
To compare a built CHEP pallet with a "whitewood" pallet is a bit misleading however in several directions, especially to come to the conclusion that they are the "good stuff". They are the good stuff in terms of build quality because (by my estimation) they are built roughly 3x as strong as a generic 48x40 (standard GMA pallet.) They also cost upwards of 3x as much to manufacture and the process is no different than the bad quality pallets that you have had experience with. (Estimated GMA is about $10-11 per, CHEP block pallet would be above $30, depending on locale.) Of course they hold up better, they are built to do so. However, the pallet industry has gone from standardization on sizes in the last 20 years (GMA 48x40, Coke pallet 36x36 mentioned below) to being specifically engineered to the load it was made to carry.
TL;DR: There are wooden pallet manufacturers out there that produce a high quality product. CHEP and plastic are both expensive but have their own issues.
I have no disagreement with you on the merits of both CHEP and GMA pallets. I have have experienced good and bad pallets of both types, and the cost is definitely the deciding factor in the equation.
Generally, these are the pros and cons I see with the major types of pallets:
Pros
====
GMA: inexpensive, standard, lightweight (a VERY big deal when cubing out a truck), easy on the supply chain.
CHEP: pretty consistent, longer lifespan
iGPS: very consistent, easy on automation, they feel indestructible
Cons
====
GMA: generally a shorter lifespan, inconsistencies between manufacturers, quality varies
CHEP: expensive, heavy, red tape
iGPS: extremely expensive, heavy, red-tape
And yes, depending on the vendor, the quality of GMA pallets varies. There are excellent pallets that hold up and seem to be built with quality material, and there are others that feel like they break into pieces after a few handlings.
There's a massive PR engine at work for both the wooden and plastic side, but the things brought up most are fire and chemical composition. You would think that nothing could worse for a fire than wooden pallets (It's a constant concern for us, not so much pallets but just wood products in general) but there's a serious hazard with the manufacture of some plastic pallets. (Think oil fire.) I'm sure some of this has been overcome or can be, but it was an issue just a few years ago for sure.
In order to combat the fire front manufacturers starting using chemical composition to make their pallets flame retardant. One of the those chemicals is called deca bromine and is considered to be extremely hazardous. This creates a problem specifically in scenarios where food contact is common.
This is a dated article, but it references some of the concerns.
Not to mention the whole sustainability and foreign oil dependency issues of plastic. Whereas plantation timber can be grown locally in the US, keeping the jobs and money on home turf and lowering the risk of ecological issues from oil drilling.
I guess fire and contamination risk is much more immediate to the company bottom line, unless the material origin could be turned into a branding/marketing factor - "We only use goddamn all-American pallets!"
Your perspective on whitewood comes from a 3rd tier perspective (grocery, as you say). In other words your various suppliers buy their pallets from various sources and then ship their product into you on those pallets. You and your (former?) employer are not directly involved in their procurement so you have little say in what you get, and I'm sure the quality varies widely.
That being said whitewood pallets (or just wooden as we would say) are actually a very cost effective and reliable way to ship product in the US, much more so than plastic. There are many quality manufacturers around the entire nation that provide great product and service, much better than your experience seems to suggest. Plastic is expensive to buy, more expensive to lose, and has various other problems and concerns.
To compare a built CHEP pallet with a "whitewood" pallet is a bit misleading however in several directions, especially to come to the conclusion that they are the "good stuff". They are the good stuff in terms of build quality because (by my estimation) they are built roughly 3x as strong as a generic 48x40 (standard GMA pallet.) They also cost upwards of 3x as much to manufacture and the process is no different than the bad quality pallets that you have had experience with. (Estimated GMA is about $10-11 per, CHEP block pallet would be above $30, depending on locale.) Of course they hold up better, they are built to do so. However, the pallet industry has gone from standardization on sizes in the last 20 years (GMA 48x40, Coke pallet 36x36 mentioned below) to being specifically engineered to the load it was made to carry.
TL;DR: There are wooden pallet manufacturers out there that produce a high quality product. CHEP and plastic are both expensive but have their own issues.