Milk Crate Manufacturers

Milk Crate Manufacturers - Introduction

This page is an index of all known manufacturers of standard Milk Crates in the US and Canada. For each manufacturer, some historical information is provided, along with photos of milk crates made by the company over time. This page is ever-expanding as I find more information!

Collecting information on the manufacturers that produce these crates has been challenging - the best way to get information very much seems to be to just handle a lot of milk crates, and take note of the manufacturer name and date of production molded into the crate. Some crate designs were made by several companies in succession, due to one company buying out another and/or acquiring their molds - which can make it hard to ID the manufacturer of a crate at a glance, a close look is very often required.
Much of the information on this page, I have collected simply by observing milkcrates, noting their design, Manufacturer markings, and date of manufacture.

Please contribute to this page! Please send me photos of milkcrates, or information about these companies if yo know anything not described below. Contact me Here!

Tedruth Plastics / TR Plastics

Tedruth Plastics was among the first producers of molded plastic milk crates, having made them as early as 1965. The company also produced various other types of molded plastic containers, and other plastic items, for both consumer and commercial/industrial markets. Crates produced by Tedruth Plastics are marked with an elaborate "TR Plastics" logo featuring a lion, and designs often include a curved diamond emblem. The curved diamond was a registered trademark held by the company, and it appears often on other products as well. The company went out of business in late 1981, and it appears that many of their milk crate designs and molds were acquired by Piper/Casepro.

The earliest TR Plastics milk crates, like others of the era, were solid-walled. The very earliest were completely solid, later variations from the late-1960s include cutouts around the top in the shape of the TR diamond.