Western Pallet Magazine August 2019 | Page 29

AUGUST 2019

Robert Holliger re-elected President of EPAL

The General Assembly of the European Pallet Association e.V. (EPAL) unanimously confirmed the appointment of the incumbent President, Robert Holliger, and the entire EPAL Board, for a further three years in office. Robert Holliger is a founding member of EPAL and since 2010, has been President of the international umbrella association for exchangeable load carriers such as the Euro pallet and Box pallet. In his role as EPAL President, Mr Holliger has decisively contributed to the development and continuing success of the world’s largest quality assurance association for load carriers.

With currently more than 500 million EPAL Euro pallets in the open exchange pool and over 100 million EPAL Euro pallets produced and repaired annually, the open Euro pallet pool has developed into the world’s largest, and therefore most efficient, load carrier pool in the past five years. A system based on reusability, it contributes enormously to sustainability.

Under Robert Holliger’s presidency, the “EPAL in oval” branding has become an international trademark of quality and safety. Trademark protection and combating counterfeiting are therefore also important cornerstones for maintaining the quality of the world’s largest open pallet exchange pool in the future. Furthermore, the development of an intelligent (IoT) pallet in cooperation with the Fraunhofer IML, is an important step towards digital load carriers, which will expand the EPAL portfolio by using the pallet as an information carrier.