Who buys new IBC totes
Every industry on this list fills totes, but not with the same thing, and the product decides the tote. Chemical shippers need a UN rating that covers their densest product. Food, beverage and dairy plants need a food-contact bottle with no history. Anything with a Class I flash point needs steel. Each page below names the products, the rule behind the choice, where the industry is concentrated in the US (BLS QCEW 2025 job counts by state and county), and the totes we would quote.
Most buyers fit more than one line: a dairy that also runs clean-in-place chemicals, a farm that stores water and liquid fertilizer, a coatings maker shipping both water-based and solvent-borne products. Read each page that applies and order the totes separately, so food-contact totes never cross into chemical service.
- Chemical distributionUN-rated 31HA1/Y totes for repack and blending, with one spec set by the hardest product.
- Food processingFood-contact bottles and gaskets, no prior contents, for syrups, oils and ingredients.
- Chemical manufacturingRated composite totes for outbound liquids and steel IBCs for flammables.
- BeveragesFood-contact totes for concentrates and stainless for spirits and cleaned-in-place product.
- DairyStainless and food-contact totes for dairy streams, rated totes for CIP chemicals.
- Fruit and vegetableFood-contact totes with large valves for purées, brines and concentrates.
- PharmaceuticalsFirst-use bottles for excipients and water, stainless for ethanol and solvents.
- Paints, coatings, adhesivesComposite totes for water-based coatings, steel for solvent-borne ones.
- Lubricants and oilsComposite totes with oil-resistant gaskets for oils and fluids.
- Meat and poultryFood-contact totes for brines, rated and vented totes for sanitation chemicals.
- Plastics and compoundingClean totes with outlets matched to dosing pumps for colour and additives.
- Farms and ranchesNew food-contact totes for stock and drinking water, rated totes for crop inputs.
If your industry isn't here, the questions are the same: what goes in, its specific gravity, packing group and flash point from the SDS, whether it is eaten or drunk, and where the totes are going. The guides explain each one.
Request a quote for new totes
Tell us your industry and the product, and we’ll quote the tote, rating and fittings that suit it, delivered to your ZIP.