Greystone Logistics Inc. (GLGI)

[NoNameStocks]

Why do you think AB has contacted Greystone? Anyone have thoughts on this?

I have been wondering what AB wants with Greystone. I know that AB has been purchasing plastic pallets from Rehrig Pacific since at least 2003 so what would they want with GLGI? As Phaedrus has said, AB was purchasing $20M annually at least at one point so I imagine that by now AB would have as many plastic beverage pallets as they want. Rehrig has been around for something like a hundred years so I doubt they're going anywhere. Does anyone have a theory? Maybe AB wants a specialty pallet that Rehrig doesn't supply like the keg pallets.

Most of Rehrig's products are other plastic things like bins and trash cans. They have some large contracts for cities to use their garbage pins and things like that.

The only difference I can think of is on the recycled content side of things. Rehrig's website states the pallets are "100% recyclable" and that "our products are designed to contain as much as 100% recycled material, depending on customer requirements." These statements only mean that all their products could be recycled into something and that at least one of their products is made from 100% recycled material. I have read in a comment on a forum that Rehrig offers a pop bottle credit similar to GLGI where they'll buy back a broken pallet for some amount. AB has an environmental initiative that is striving to do things like reduce water usage, greenhouse gases, etc:

http://legacy.ab-inbev.com/go/social_responsibility/Environment/2017_Goals.cfm

So my conspiracy theory is that, as part of their environmental initiative, AB wants recycled pallets and Rehrig doesn't supply those so they are going to have GLGI replace their existing pallets as the Rehrig pallets break. AB will ship the broken Rehrig pallets to Greystone who will grind them up and mix up their special sauce then mold new recycled pallets. AB will slowly transition to using GLGI pallets.

Along with this theory, the Dec 2013 test pallets sent from GLGI to AB were normal GLGI beverage pallets for AB to check the supplier's quality. Then AB sent old rehrig pallets to GLGI who came up with a design and plastic mix that will work for the required load. The new mold is done and the latest test pallets sent to AB are the final design using Rehrig's broken old pallets.

I think if Rehrig's pallets were made of recycled materials then they would state that explicitly instead of saying they are "recyclable." Maybe the only way Rehrig can get the high strength necessary for the beverage pallets is to make them with virgin plastic and then when the pallets break they are recycled into other low strength products like soda trays.

I've emailed AB and Rehrig but that was a dead end. I emailed GLGI to ask if they could recycle another company's pallets and if anyone had ever asked them to do that but they didn't respond. Maybe the no response is because that's exactly what AB and GLGI are doing, or maybe I spend too much time thinking about this stuff...