Santa Clara County is the whole of the South Bay's pallet market, with San Jose as county seat and largest city. About 6,500 high-technology companies are headquartered here, and almost all of them receive and ship on pallets.
Nursery plants, at over $109 million, and mushrooms, at $79.48 million, led the 2021 farm figure. That farm side sits in the south, around Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and its pallets are clean and dry. The technology side sits in the north, and its pallets are equipment skids, crates and the standard 48x40.
The county's ZIPs run 95002 (Alviso), 95008, 95013, 95020 (Gilroy), 95035 (Milpitas), 95037 (Morgan Hill), 95046, 95050, 95051 and 95054 (Santa Clara), 94085 to 94090 (Sunnyvale), and the 951xx series for San Jose. A request that names a ZIP can be placed more exactly than one that names only a city.
San Jose takes in its districts and Coyote Valley. North to south, the other cities run: Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Milpitas for the equipment and electronics docks, then Morgan Hill and Gilroy at the south end.
Santa Clara is where chip-tool makers and server farms sit side by side. Its 2024 financial report lists these employers:
| Employer | Employees, 2024 | Kind of freight |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Materials | 8,500 | Semiconductor equipment |
| Intel | 7,801 | Chips and fab supplies |
| AMD | 3,000 | Chips |
| Kaiser Foundation Health Plan | 2,600 | Medical supplies |
| Nvidia | 2,500 | Computing hardware |
| Dell | 2,088 | Computing hardware |
More than 50 data centers in the city use about 60 percent of its municipal utilities' energy, and each build or expansion leaves a mixed pile: standard 48x40s under the racks, odd skids under the cooling plant and crates around the switchgear. US-101 passes through next to San Jose International Airport, and Caltrain, ACE, the Capitol Corridor and VTA light rail serve the city.
Most of Sunnyvale north of SR-237 is zoned for industrial use, and its docks serve aerospace, medical devices, diagnostics and e-commerce. The city's 2025 employer list includes Intuitive Surgical at 3,836, Lockheed Martin Space at 3,362 and Cepheid at 3,042.
| Trade | Typical packaging | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Aerospace and defense | Custom crates and skids | Heavy, often export-marked wood |
| Medical devices and diagnostics | Clean Grade A or new pallets | Cleanliness matters at receiving |
| E-commerce and logistics | Mixed 48x40 in volume | High turnover, broken stock |
Five highways serve the city: I-280, US-101, SR-82, SR-85 and SR-237. Caltrain stops downtown and at Lawrence, and Moffett Federal Airfield sits on the north side, so a Moffett Park building and a downtown storefront face very different truck access.
Milpitas is a city of contract manufacturers, network-equipment makers and wafer-tool suppliers. In 2020 its largest employers were Cisco with 3,347 workers, Flex with 2,732, KLA with 2,223 and Sandisk with 1,913, and computer and electronic products employed about 34.1 percent of working men and 26.9 percent of working women.
That mix sets the pallet flow. Contract manufacturers receive components by the trailer, so inbound pallets pile up faster than they ship out; a wafer-tool maker's docks fill with crates and skids, a distributor's with mixed 48x40s. I-880 runs through the industrial west side and I-680 along the east, SR-237 begins in the city, and Fremont's Warm Springs and Bayside industrial areas lie just across the county line.
Manufacturing is Morgan Hill's largest industry, and its docks ship test equipment, bicycles, medical devices and food. The city reports an industrial vacancy rate of 11.1 percent and lease rates lower than most Bay Area cities, which draws pallet-heavy tenants but also makes a standing pile cheaper to keep.
| Employer | Employees, 2018 | Trade |
|---|---|---|
| Anritsu | 480 | Test equipment |
| Specialized Bicycle Components | 380 | Sports products |
| Paramit | 300 | Contract manufacturing |
| NxEdge | 280 | Semiconductor parts |
| Lusamerica Foods | 270 | Food |
| Toray Advanced Composites | 250 | Composites |
| Infineon Technologies | 240 | Electronic components |
Mushrooms, a damp product shipped daily in cartons, once made it the self-styled Mushroom Capital of the World, and their packers want dry, clean pallets. Monterey Road is the main street, Caltrain's station has weekday rush-hour service, and the north edge meets San Jose at Coyote Valley.
Gilroy, the self-styled Garlic Capital of the World, ships garlic, food and farm goods on pallets that must be clean, and moves them in peaks. Its top employers include Christopher Ranch and Olam International, and it has more than 20 wineries and tasting rooms. The Gilroy Dispatch reported in February 2018 that Performance Food Group planned a 195,000-square-foot food distribution facility on 30 acres at 5480 Monterey Road. US-101 and SR-152 meet in the town and Caltrain's line ends there, so a pickup is a long haul from North San Jose.
No count of pallets is available for the county, and any estimate would be a guess.
No. Fremont is in Alameda County; see South Alameda County.
Sources, last reviewed 12 November 2026