Why large bulk bags?

Go back about 10 years you would definitely not have been able to buy firewood in bulk bags so why now, and where do these bulk bags originate from?

To be honest I have absolutely no idea how long bulk bags have been around, but I know its an awfully long time. I presume they probably came about as we moved away from manual handling and fork lift trucks and industrial loaders became more everyday and it became more efficient to move product around in large bulk bags. It's actually amazing how many things are carried in bulk bags these days. My earliest memories were on the farm when we first had fertiliser delivered in large dumpy bags.  I suspect this would have been in the 70's, prior to that, all the fertiliser came in 50kg bags, or one hundred weight (112lbs) as it was in those days.

Nowadays, bulk bags are used in so many industries - chemical, pharmaceutical, food and building to name but a few, and they come in different forms carrying between 500kg and 2,000 kg in weight. As you enter the world of bulk bags you hear terms such as side seam loops; tunnel lift; single point lift etc and that's just for lifting, then for filling you hear such terms as open top, flap top, skirt top and filling spout and for emptying you hear full drop bottom and discharge spout - oh the world of bulk bags!!

We originally delivered our bulk loads of firewood with a car and tipper trailer as is still often the case today, but we got to a stage where this was just so inefficient and costly to deliver that we decided to buy a small lorry with a hiab crane and deliver 8 bulk bags at a time. Its such a great system, saves time and money and uses less fuel so much better for the environment. It also provides more flexibility with log deliveries enabling bags to be dropped over walls and hedges and as close as possible to log stores.

We then started to deliver firewood nationwide but the only national delivery networks are via pallets as for more product is moved around the UK on pallets rather than bulk bags. Pallet networks are incredibly efficient and cost effective and customers find the bulk bag delivery works really well. The huge difference over loose loads being delivered in a trailer is that the wood is kept in a confined space, kept dry and does not mess up the driveway meaning a little less pressure to get those logs stacked away.