Mohali sits at an unusual intersection — IT campuses in Sectors 67 to 91, a deep pharma cluster spilling over from Baddi and Derabassi, and an auto belt anchored by Hero MotoCorp and Sonalika Tractors. Each of those verticals ships finished goods in wooden packaging, and each has different tolerances for moisture, drop-shock and ISPM-15 compliance. We supply packing-grade plywood, ready crates, heat-treated pallets and 28 mm container flooring into all three from our Kochi base, and this post is a practical breakdown of what we ship north, how it moves the 2,400-odd kilometres up, and how to pick the right grade for the load.
The Mohali industrial picture
Mohali district's manufacturing footprint is concentrated across a handful of well-defined estates, and each has a distinct packaging profile.
- Industrial Area Phase 1, 2, 7, 8, 8B and 9 — the original PSIEC estates running along the Chandigarh-Ludhiana corridor. Heavy on auto-component machining, sheet-metal fabrication and electrical switchgear. Crates here are often heavy, irregular and built to ride the road network down to Mundra or JNPT.
- Sectors 82, 83, 91 (IT City and Quark City) — IT campuses, data-centre kit, networking hardware. Lighter loads, but exporters here are strict on look-and-feel of the packaging and on ISPM-15 stamping for international shipments.
- Sector 75, 80, 81 and 82 industrial belt — mixed engineering, food processing and a growing pharma packaging cluster feeding Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) just across the Himachal border.
- Derabassi-Lalru belt — pharma APIs, agro-chemicals and tractor-component vendors feeding Sonalika at Hoshiarpur. Crate volumes here are recurring and the spec list is short — boxes, pallets, container liners.
Add the Hero MotoCorp plant at the Industrial Area Phase 1 entry, the tractor CKD packing demand pulled in by Sonalika and Mahindra-Swaraj's vendors, and you get a fairly steady monthly draw on packing plywood across thicknesses from 8 mm up to 18 mm.
What we ship to Mohali
Three product families cover almost every Mohali requirement we see.
1. Packing-grade plywood — sheets
This is our core product for crate builders and in-house packing departments. Built on a hardwood core (rubberwood or jackwood), MR-grade phenolic-bonded, finished in standard 8x4 ft sheets. Most Mohali buyers pull from a narrow band:
| Thickness | Typical use in Mohali loads |
|---|---|
| 8 mm | Light IT hardware boxes, switchgear lids, internal partitions |
| 10-12 mm | Standard crate sides and tops for auto components, pharma export cases |
| 15-18 mm | Crate bases, heavy machinery boxes, tractor CKD bottoms, container floors |
We can run an Okoume face-veneer option on the same MR-Packing core when the export customer wants a cleaner look (common for European-bound pharma and IT shipments). Okoume is a face choice on our packing or BWR grade — it's not a separate grade. Ask if your buyer is specifying it by name.
2. Ready crates and boxes
For factories that don't want to run their own carpentry shed, we build complete crates to drawing — pinewood frame with packing-ply panels, optionally heat-treated to ISPM-15 with the IPPC mark for export. Typical Mohali jobs: tractor CKD crates (1.2 to 1.5 cubic metres each), engine-and-gearbox boxes for two-wheeler exports, server-rack crates with internal foam dunnage. We can ship knocked-down (KD) bundles for the buyer to assemble on site if road volume is the bottleneck.
3. Pallets and container flooring
Standard Indian export pallets — 1200 x 1000 mm and 1200 x 800 mm Euro — in heat-treated pinewood with a 12 mm packing-ply top deck where the load needs a continuous surface (sacks, drums, IBC bottoms). For container-stuffing operations at the ICDs around Mohali (ICD Sahnewal, ICD Dronagiri-equivalent rail nodes), 28 mm shuttering-grade ply works as a single-use container floor liner under wheeled cargo or sharp-edged machinery — cheaper than rebuilding the steel floor after each tractor or generator shipment.
Kochi-to-Mohali logistics
The route is roughly 2,400 km by road. Two practical options:
- Direct trucking — multi-axle 32-footer or container truck from Ernakulam via Bengaluru-Hyderabad-Nagpur-Delhi-Mohali. Transit usually 6 to 8 days. Best for full-truck orders (one container of plywood is roughly 500 to 600 sheets of 18 mm or 900+ sheets of 8 mm depending on density). FOR (freight-on-receiver) and FOB Cochin terms both available; we typically advise FOR for first-time Mohali buyers so the rate lands clean at their gate.
- Containerised rail via Cochin Port (Vallarpadam ICD) to Ludhiana / Dadri ICD — works for export-bound crates and pallets that are already going into a sealed box, and for buyers in the BBN belt where rail to Ludhiana is the natural unload point. Slower (10 to 14 days door-to-door) but takes the diesel exposure off the table.
For ready crates and pallets, road wins almost every time — the volumetric weight of empty crates makes rail uneconomic unless you're consolidating with sheet stock.
Which grade for which Mohali load
A quick decision rule we run when scoping a Mohali enquiry:
- Domestic crates, road transit, dry storage — MR-grade packing plywood, 12 mm sides, 15 mm base. Lowest landed cost per crate.
- Export crates, sea transit, monsoon-season stuffing — same construction but BWR-grade (boiling-water resistant) panels and full ISPM-15 heat-treated frames. The premium over MR is small versus the cost of a rejection at the destination port.
- Visible-face exports (pharma, IT, premium auto) — packing or BWR core with an Okoume face veneer. The finish is cleaner and the buyer's QC team stops asking questions about the timber.
- Container flooring, ramp boards, jigs — 28 mm film-faced shuttering ply. Single shipment use, then either resold as scrap or re-used in the factory as work-table tops.
FAQ
Do you supply ISPM-15 heat-treated crates with IPPC stamp?
Yes. Our pinewood frames are heat-treated at registered facilities and stamped with the IPPC mark and the treatment provider code. The packing plywood panels themselves don't require treatment under ISPM-15 (processed wood is exempt), but the framing timber does, and we handle that end-to-end so the export documentation is clean.
Can you hold buffer stock in or near Mohali?
For monthly off-takes above roughly 20,000 sq ft of sheet equivalent, yes — we work with stocking partners in the Ludhiana-Mohali belt to keep 30 to 45 days of cover so urgent draws don't wait on a Kochi truck. Below that volume, scheduled monthly trucks usually beat the warehousing cost.
What's the minimum order for a first trial?
For sheets, one truck (roughly 18 to 22 tonnes depending on thickness mix) is the practical minimum to keep per-sqft freight reasonable to Mohali. For ready crates, we'll quote from 20 crates upwards. Smaller trial volumes are possible by consolidating with another north-India lane, but lead time stretches.
Getting a quote
Send us the thickness and quantity for sheets, or the drawing and monthly run-rate for crates and pallets. We'll come back with a delivered-Mohali rate, transit estimate and grade recommendation in one quote. The Cochin Wood group has been in Perumbavoor since 1986 — about forty years of packing-plywood manufacturing experience sits behind every truck that leaves for Mohali. Request a quote with your spec list, or browse the resource hub for grade-selection guides, ISPM-15 notes and crate construction references before you brief us.