Our history
Our story began in 1891, when Hidde Binnert Halbertsma took up a new trade and started producing wooden barrels for butter. While the Halbertsma company flourished and gradually moved towards the production of pallets, Frederik Faber founded a similar business in Assen in 1935.
In 1948, the Halbertsma company was presumably among the first in Europe to use Hyster forklift trucks, which accelerated the development of load boards. The so-called “pallets” opened up new markets and seemingly endless possibilities. When in 1969 the Faber company was hit by an enormous fire, the company decided to shift its production focus to pallets as well. After Faber senior handed over the reins completely to his son in 1977, the company acquired several businesses, among which Halbertsma in 1983. In 1992, the two companies merged to form the Faber Halbertsma Group. Later that same year, Ingrid Faber joined the team, followed by her brother Erik in 1994. Changes to environmental legislation soon lead the group to discover a new angle to the pallet business: pallet pooling. As a result of our rapidly growing interest in sustainability and circularity, pallet pooling became one of the group’s core activities, creating new, international opportunities. In 1997, we introduced the Pallet Return System to extend our services to the entire European polymer industry. One year later, we acquired Philips Pallet Pool, followed in 2000 by Logipal, a French pooling service provider active in the food industry. Both acquisitions enabled us to strengthen our position in the European market and expand our pooling business. Back then, moving from only selling pallets to selling and renting pallets was truly innovative. It is our family’s entrepreneurial mindset that has propelled us to a leading position in open and closed pooling systems today.
In 2002, we proudly received, as a member of a European timber purchasing association in Russia, a certificate from Greenpeace in acknowledgment of our joint efforts to raise the local standards for wood harvesting and processing. Together we committed to sourcing only Russian timber with full FSC® certification. In September 2006, Ingrid took over the leadership of the group. Six years later, we acquired PAKi Logistics, a European service provider for standardised (Euro) load carriers. The strategic acquisition of PAKi Logistics turned out to be an important milestone in our history, unlocking the market of open and closed pooling systems in Europe. The group’s international expansion continued with IPP’s acquisition of El Palet Verde in 2016 and PAKi Logistics incorporating the German vPool in 2019. Over the years we have grown into a diversified family of companies. The combination of open and closed pooling services together with our in-house production partners makes our group robust, agile and ready for tomorrow. That’s our legacy today. It’s where our future begins.