The IBC sees more industries than a temp agency.

What if your industry isn’t on the list?

We left a few off because the page would never end. We’ve sold totes to: aquaculture farms in coastal Washington, sand-and-salt fleets in Wyoming, university chemistry departments, three different aquaria, a cattle veterinarian who needed a mobile saline rig, and a film production that wanted four totes painted bright orange for a desert sequence. If you don’t see your industry above, just ask — we’ve almost certainly shipped a tote to someone like you before.

What we’ll need to get you the right tote

• The chemical or product you’re storing
• Concentration and temperature range
• How often you’ll fill and empty the tote
• Whether you need food-grade or industrial documentation
• How many totes and where they’re shipping

Industries we serve in detail

Agriculture and ag chemistry

Liquid fertilizer (10-34-0, urea ammonium nitrate, ammonium thiosulfate, potassium thiosulfate), foliar feeds, fish emulsion, livestock supplements, irrigation buffers, sodium molasses, herbicides at end-use concentration, surfactants for ag chemistry. The agricultural sector accounts for roughly 28% of our reborn tote sales by volume. Most agricultural buyers want Grade B used or reconditioned 275-gallon totes with hardwood pallets (because they will live outdoors and the soft cost of a plastic pallet does not pay back). The biggest gotcha in agriculture is freezing — Front Range customers need to drain the valve cavity before any subfreezing night.

Food and beverage processing

Honey, maple syrup, juice concentrate, vinegar, edible oils (canola, soybean, palm, sunflower, olive), malt extract, brewing wort, hot sauce intermediates, salsa, beverage syrups, sugar concentrate, liquid sweetener, tomato paste at high solids. About 22% of our volume. These customers want food-grade reconditioned totes with documented hot-wash logs and a Birth Certificate. Plastic pallets are common because the totes get washed routinely. The biggest gotcha is mismatching prior contents to new contents — a tote that previously held sugar syrup and is being filled with vinegar will have residual flavor transfer no matter how thorough the wash.

Brewing, distilling, and cidery operations

Wort, mash slurry, spent grain hydrolysate, distillate cuts (foreshots, hearts, tails), cleaning solutions, wash water, finished beer/cider/spirits in bulk transit, malt extract for repacking. About 6% of our volume but a customer base we love because they tend to be small, technically curious, and willing to talk for an hour about the chemistry of fermentation. Most brewing customers buy stainless 350-gallon 304 tanks with sanitary fittings rather than caged composite. We have sold composite totes to one customer specifically for fermenting hot sauce and to another for making artisan vinegar.

Cosmetics and personal care

Glycerin, propylene glycol, surfactants (SLS, SLES, cocamidopropyl betaine), fragrance bases, essential oil intermediates, lotion bases, soap base, body wash bulk, hair care intermediates. About 8% of our volume. These customers tend to want reconditioned 275-gallon food-grade totes with full chain-of-custody documentation because their downstream customers (the actual cosmetic brands) audit packaging.

Construction and building materials

Concrete admixtures (water reducers, accelerators, retarders, plasticizers), curing compounds, asphalt rejuvenators, latex emulsions for paint and sealant, jobsite water, dust suppression chemistry, anti-icing solutions, form release oil, drilling mud chemistry. About 12% of our volume. Construction customers are usually buying Grade B or Grade C used totes because they live in tough environments and the cosmetic appearance does not matter. They are also our most frequent custom-mods customers — open-top conversions for jobsite mixing tanks are the single most-commissioned modification we do.

Wastewater and water treatment

Sodium hypochlorite (12.5%), ferric chloride (40%), aluminum sulfate, polyaluminum chloride, polymer feed (cationic and anionic), defoamer, sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) at intermediate strengths, citric acid for membrane cleaning. About 9% of our volume. Wastewater customers run a mix of caged composite (for the polymer and citric work) and stainless 316 (for the chloride chemistry). The compatibility check is the most important conversation we have with these customers — putting the wrong chemistry in the wrong tote material is how operators end up with a leaking tote on a chemical feed line at 3 a.m.

Pharma, biotech, and specialty chemistry

Buffer solutions, fermentation feeds, rinse water for non-GMP applications, intermediate solvents (we route most pharma solvents to stainless), API precursor solutions, lab water systems. About 4% of our volume. Pharma customers are the most documentation-intensive and the most demanding on quality, but they are also the most predictable repeat customers because their internal validation makes it expensive to switch suppliers.

Energy, oil and gas

Drilling mud chemistry, completion fluids, frac additives at intermediate concentration, glycol antifreeze for cold-weather operations, methanol for gas line dehydration, well-pad water staging. About 5% of our volume. Most energy sector buyers are choosing between caged composite for water and bulk-soluble chemistry, and stainless 316 for the more aggressive completion fluids.

Hobby, DIY, and small farm

Rainwater catchment, off-grid water storage, hydroponic and aquaponic systems, beekeeping syrup, small-batch winemaking and brewing, livestock troughs, garden bed conversions, mobile wash stations, emergency water reserves. About 6% of our volume by tote count but a much smaller share by revenue because most of these orders are 1-3 totes. We love this side of the business and we run a discount on Grade C and upcycle stock specifically to keep it accessible.

Industries frequently asked

How seasonal each industry is

Each of the industries we serve has its own rhythm of orders through the calendar year. Knowing the rhythm helps us plan inventory, freight capacity, and bay utilization. It also helps customers know when to place orders for the best prices and the best availability.

Agriculture (highly seasonal)

Agriculture is the most seasonal of our customer segments. Order volumes spike in February and March (pre-planting), again in June and July (in-season fertilizer top-ups), and once more in October and November (harvest support and winter prep). The slow stretch is December and January, when farms are mostly shut down and ag distributors are working off existing inventory. Customers who order in the slow stretch get the best inventory selection and the lowest freight rates.

Food and beverage (steady, with two small bumps)

Food and beverage processors order on a much steadier rhythm. The two small bumps are pre-summer (May-June, when juice and beverage syrups ramp up) and pre-winter (October-November, when packaging volumes increase for holiday production). Otherwise the order pattern is roughly flat across the year. This is the most predictable customer segment.

Brewing, distilling, cidery (small but tied to harvests)

Brewing customers order steadily throughout the year. Cidery customers spike in late summer through October (apple harvest). Distillery customers vary widely depending on the type of spirit — bourbon distilleries have a long aging cycle and order steadily, while gin distilleries often run in batches and have lumpier order patterns.

Construction (project-driven)

Construction customers order in lumps that correspond to specific projects. A typical pattern is 4-8 totes for the start of a project, then radio silence for 6-12 months, then another batch for the next project. Construction is one of our most repeat-friendly segments because once a project manager has used our totes successfully on one job, they tend to come back for the next one.

Wastewater (steady, with regulatory bumps)

Municipal wastewater operations have steady year-round demand for chemical feed totes. The bumps come around regulatory inspections and at the start of new fiscal years (typically July 1 for many municipalities), when new chemical contracts kick in.

Cosmetics and personal care (steady to growing)

Cosmetic processors are some of our most predictable customers, with steady order volumes that grow gradually as their own businesses grow. The single seasonal effect we see is a small November-December bump for holiday season packaging.

Energy and oilfield (variable)

Oilfield customers are highly variable depending on rig counts, commodity prices, and weather. The Front Range and Rockies oilfield activity has been steady to growing for the past several years, with bumps in the spring as new wells come online.

Hobby and DIY (spring spike)

The hobby segment spikes hard in March, April, and May as gardeners, beekeepers, off-grid cabin owners, and DIY builders prepare for the warm season. The spring spike is more than half of our annual hobby tote volume in those three months. We deliberately stockpile upcycle Grade D inventory through the winter so we have plenty of supply when the spring rush arrives.

Industries we have served just once or twice

The "long tail" of customer industries that have ordered from us at least once but are not regular customers. We mention them because the variety is one of the things we love about this business.

• Aquariums. Three different public aquariums on the West Coast and Mountain West have ordered stainless and food-grade composite totes for saltwater preparation, holding, and life support backup.
• Universities. Chemistry departments, environmental science labs, and engineering programs have ordered single totes for research projects involving bulk fluid handling.
• Film productions. We have supplied painted and modified totes to four film productions that needed industrial-looking props for desert and post-apocalyptic scenes.
• Mobile vet clinics. A handful of large-animal veterinarians have ordered mobile wash stations built on IBC chassis for cleaning equipment between farm visits.
• Whitewater rafting outfitters. One outfitter in the Rockies bought a stainless tote to hold potable water for backcountry trips.
• Bee yards. Multiple commercial apiarists have ordered food-grade reconditioned totes for sugar syrup feeding.
• Disaster relief organizations. Two different disaster-response teams have ordered totes for emergency water staging during wildfire and flood operations in the West.
• Hot sauce makers. At least three regional hot sauce co-packers have ordered food-grade totes for fermentation and bulk storage.
• An ice climbing school. They use a tote at the base of an ice route to feed water onto the ice for cultivation early in the season. We had to ask for the explanation twice because we did not believe it the first time.

What every industry has in common

Despite the wild variety of applications, almost every industry that uses IBC totes has the same three things in common. First, they are storing a liquid in bulk. Second, the bulk volume sits between drum-size (too small to be efficient) and tank-truck-size (too big to be flexible). Third, the storage container has to move at least occasionally — either to a fill site, a dispense site, or a return location. The IBC tote occupies the unique structural position of being big enough to be efficient, small enough to be portable, durable enough to be reused, and standard enough to be interchangeable across the supply chain. That is why it has become as ubiquitous as it has, and that is why we believe the reuse model that already works for IBC totes is one of the most underrated sustainability stories in industrial logistics.