Your freight forwarder called and said the crate “needs the stamp.” Or your customer in Germany sent a one-line email asking for ISPM-15 certification. Either way, you are now responsible for a rule nobody ever explained to you, and the truck leaves Thursday. Here is the part that catches people out. The wood around your product is regulated cargo in its own right. A perfectly compliant machine inside a non-compliant crate still gets refused at the border. ISPM-15 Canada requ

There is a machine on your floor. Built, tested, signed off, and due somewhere else by a date that is already tight. The only thing between it and the truck is packaging, and nobody in the building owns that decision. Custom wood crates exist because off-the-shelf packaging is designed for an average product, and nothing you build is average. Freight damage, refused shipments at the border and the rework that follows almost always trace back to packaging that was chosen inste