IBC totes in Chester County: the mushroom belt and beyond
Chester County is the mushroom county: growers within about ten miles of Kennett Square produce roughly half the U.S. crop. It is mostly a buyer of totes, for water, and a source of a few.
01What sits here
Chester County mushroom farmers produce more than 500 million pounds a year. Around them are farms, nurseries and food packers, and in the north the Exton and Malvern office-and-lab parks. Steel and manufacturing sit at the western edge, in Coatesville and Downingtown. The farms are the buyers; the lab and manufacturing parks are the sellers.
| ZIP codes | Industries here | Agency to ask about empties |
|---|---|---|
| 19348, 19320, 19341, 19335, 19380, 19382, 19460, 19355, 19363, 19390, 19374, 19311 | mushroom farming, food packing, pharmaceutical, agriculture, nurseries | Pennsylvania DEP |
02Who has empties, who needs totes
A grower asks for a few totes at a time, with a food-safe history or a water-only past, delivered to the farm. A lab or plant in Exton puts out a handful of clean empties. The desk matches the two inside the county where it can, and otherwise reaches across the line to Montgomery County’s pharma sites or Delaware County’s plants.
03Roads, rules and the move
US 1 runs through Kennett Square, with US 30 and US 202 crossing the north and US 322 and PA 41 and PA 100 the roads between. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is the agency to ask. The three districts, Kennett Square, Exton and West Chester, and Coatesville and Downingtown, have their own pages.
04Districts in this county
| District | ZIP codes | Industries |
|---|---|---|
| Kennett Square and the mushroom belt | 19348, 19374, 19390, 19311, 19350 | mushroom farming, food packing, compost, nurseries |
| Exton, West Chester and Malvern | 19341, 19380, 19382, 19355, 19335 | pharmaceutical, medical devices, specialty chemicals, food manufacturing |
| Coatesville and Downingtown | 19320, 19335, 19372, 19365 | steel, manufacturing, farming |
05Weather, season and timing
In Chester County the demand calendar is set by growing houses and nurseries, not by seasons alone, and the mushroom belt buys year-round. Horse farms, orchards and vineyards in the hills buy for irrigation and for holding tanks in summer. Sellers in other counties should note that hill roads limit trailer length, and a smaller truck may be the only one a farm lane allows.
06A ticket from here
- Put one of the ZIP codes from the first table on the ticket.
- Say how many, which size, and that the use is water; add the delivery ZIP.
?Questions on this page
Who buys totes in Chester County?
Mushroom growers, nurseries and farms, mostly for water and spray mix.
Do I need a retest date for a farm tote?
Not for water use. A known last-contents history matters more.
→Inside Chester County
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-11-11. Rules change; read the current text before you act on it.