Pictured here are INCA’s most popular item—the 12″ cork plugs. INCA, located in Sardis, MS, produces more than 10,000 plugs a day in various sizes. The materials used are mainly hard and soft wood chips hammered down into smaller chips to make for a stronger product. The wood chips are mixed with a glue compound made up of paraffin wax and core resin, then taken to a shaker basket via conveyor where the press shakes the material into the mold to form the plugs and pallets. The plugs are “hot off the press” and have to cool and cure before sent to the warehouse for packaging and shipping across the US, Canada and South America.
It’s hard to believe that Inca has been here for twenty-five years! Years filled with ups and downs mixed with sweat and determination to produce quality pallets and core plugs.
It all started in Germany. The first INKA pallet was made in 1971 in Siegertsbrunn just outside of Munich and the registered office is still located there today. INKA has sales offices in Europe and two manufacturing facilities in the USA. We are nationally known for a guaranteed pest-free process; our products can be recycled and are reusable in many ways.
In the early 1970’s Corky Trebilcock of Litco International and Hans Inselkammer of INKA Germany formed a relationship that eventually brought the technology of presswood pallets to the United States. Litco International and Inca Presswood-Pallets, Ltd. have maintained this relationship for the past 40 years. Litco operates as the sales and marketing element of the relationship and Inca is responsible for product development, manufacturing and technical support for Inca Presswood products.
Inca Presswood-Pallets, Ltd. began operations in Dover, Ohio in 1979, beginning with four pallet presses. The operation quickly expanded, and by the time the Sardis, Mississippi Plant began construction in 1989, there were fourteen presses at the Dover facility producing various sizes of presswood shipping pallets and producing approximately 7,000 pallets per day.
The Sardis Plant was officially opened on April 20, 1990 with four operating pallet presses. The major customer for both plants at the time was the United States Postal Service. Like Dover, the Sardis plant was expanded to 9 pallet presses within the first four years of operation. Inca supplied over 200,000 pallets per month to the Postal Service for several years. Other customers included newspaper, printer and chemical manufacturers as well as several other industrial patrons.
In the mid 1990’s, the Postal Service made a decision to primarily use plastic pallets. This began the diversity in packaging products that Inca now supplies worldwide. Paper tube core plugs and presswood separator sticks were some of the new packaging products Inca developed during the late 1990’s and throughout the early part of the century.
Inca has expanded its operations to include nearly every size of core plug used in the paper industry as well as numerous sizes of pallets to meet the increasing demand for diversity in packaging and product protection. Fortunately today, our customer base has grown, ranging from Florida to California with exports to South America and Canada as well. Both plants operate on a 24-hour schedule now days and employ approximately 70 full time employees corporate wide.
“Thank you for participating in our 25th Anniversary Celebration at Inca Sardis. We are very proud of our accomplishments over the past 25 years and thankful for the commitment from our ownership, management and community to make this anniversary possible. We are most proud of our employees and their commitment to Safety, Quality and producing the best molded wood products possible. We employ 25 full-time employees in Sardis and hope to expand as our new product lines started this past year begin to increase in sales. Our plant has worked for over 2 1/2 years without a lost time accident, a record we are most proud of and work daily to maintain,” stated Dale Hart, Sardis Plant Manager at the anniversary celebration held on Tuesday, April 21 at the plant.
