About Corrugated Packaging

An Industry on the Move

The corrugated packaging industry isn’t standing still. The industry is constantly exploring new ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its traditional packaging solutions, by looking at new grades of paper and surface treatments.At the same time it is looking to corrugated engineering - as ingenious as origami - to extend its range.

Corrugated packaging has always offered protection without loss of flexibility, and the industry has responded to the needs of new, more efficient distribution systems.
In the future, the innovative use of materials and combinations of components will ensure that corrugated packaging remains the most economic and hygienic packaging solution.

At the cutting edge of R&D, the industry is already exploring ways to make this vision a reality by effectively integrating smart chips into corrugated packaging. The goal is to create packages that are so easily identifiable and secure, they will make barcodes look primitive.

Technical advances during the last decade have produced weight savings of 20 per cent without impairing protective or structural qualities. And the drive for improved weight reductions continues. Advances in material science are leading to new types of structural products such as corrugated pallets that offer huge economic and other advantages.

Protection helps to reduce product damage to 0.001 per cent of all manufacturers’ output. The industry is seeking to surpass even this record.To increase efficiency, manufacturers are looking to further improve the versatility of corrugated packaging in transit all the way to point-of-sale.

Corrugated board has already evolved to answer more user needs than any other type of packaging. This preoccupation with innovation extends to improving the ways in which the industry relates to customers - to provide new commercial opportunities.

With so much thought going into corrugated packaging, there are some great benefits in store.

No other material has been used so creatively. Industry R&D has provided a stream of ever more diverse single-piece, interlocking packaging. The origami of corrugated packaging releases infinite design possibilities and exploits the load-bearing properties of easy to erect, engineered structures. Advanced high-quality printing makes short print-runs economical, and allows more information to be incorporated into bar codes. Material science is also creating new grades of paper and surface treatments.

Closer-fitting packaging
By eliminating any room for movement, precision, die-cut packaging provides highly reliable protection during transit. It is designed using advanced CAD/CAM methods. Single-piece packages provide fast machine packing, eliminate separate components and secondary materials.

Advanced plant achieves high production runs, consistently reproducing the tightest engineering tolerances.

Apart from reducing damage, it also leads to packaging that is much easier to handle at the point of sale.

Micro flutes bring macro benefits
The newer micro flutes are replacing cartonboard in a variety of applications. Since corrugated is stronger, packs are strong enough to go onto pallets and then straight onto shelves from where they can be conveniently carried home by customers who take the packaging with them.

Advanced flexographic gloss printing and improved papers produce image quality previously not achievable. This transit packaging also makes excellent point of sale.

High Quality Post Print (HQPP)
The latest technological developments have made high quality printing a practical proposition for extending brand images to transit packaging. Leading corrugated case manufacturers are able to offer low-cost, short print runs for special promotions. Now more information such as the use-by-date can be put into bar codes and adjusted more frequently. Other information such as assembly instructions can be printed on the box. Some manufacturers are already exploring other encryption possibilities such as secreting information in the glue or the board or adding smart chips. Improved identification of products assists with proof of ownership or to support issues of due diligence.

Unusual single piece transit pack for dispenser for the Nairobi Coffee and Tea Co. Ltd.

Higher strength, lighter weight packaging
Tulip International produces thin cuts of vacuum-packed meat. Its new and acclaimed duo packaging uses less material to achieve higher levels of protection and is a triumph of inter-industry co-operation across Europe.

The design uses a special corner post feature to achieve higher strength using less material than similar pack styles and enables the manufacturer to reduce the primary pack specification.

The Duo pack gives retailers more efficient supply-chain management and in-store merchandising and meets manufacturers’ needs for efficient packaging lines, product protection and brand reinforcement. 

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