Bed Tech Midwest has found an innovative way to cut costs while reducing its environmental footprint. What began as a cost accounting exercise to mitigate the impact of rising global tariffs has evolved into a sustainability initiative that benefits both retailers and the planet.
President Justin Trumbo, who has vowed a long-standing promise to retailers to avoid price increases at all costs, recently examined the company’s biggest input expenses.
Lumber, used to build the company’s custom shipping pallets, stood out as one of the largest cost drivers. Bed Tech Midwest has long built its own pallets from fresh 2x4x8 and 1x4x8 boards to ensure product arrives safely and damage-free — a system that has kept shipping issues to a minimum.
And with that, Trumbo realized there was an opportunity for change.
“These pallets are only used once, and they don’t come back to us,” Trumbo says. “We don’t need to build a house just to ship an adjustable.”
That insight led Bed Tech Midwest to partner with a local company that reclaims wood from old pallets, recycling shorter boards into usable materials. The result: pallets strong enough for one-way shipping, a reduction in new lumber usage, and measurable cost savings.
Looking ahead, the company’s goal is to move toward a system where every pallet shipped is built from recycled wood. While the initiative already delivers a modest economic gain, Trumbo says the real success is in the dual outcome.
“It’s exciting to see that a cost savings exercise, which we started to help reduce future price increases, could also create a path for us to go green,” Trumbo says. “Finding solutions that benefit both our retailers and the environment is a real win. We would love to get to a point where we are pallet-neutral in our process, removing as many pallets from circulation as we send out. That’s the ultimate sustainability goal.”
