We are always looking for ways to help our customers reduce or minimize cost and recently we had two situations where we literally had to think inside as well as outside the box in order to get the job done.

New Products and Unique Packaging

Sometimes the challenge is how to economically create custom packaging for a new and unique product and not break the bank doing it. In other words, protecting a product during shipment and making it affordable, even when the volume is relatively small. One way to do it is to combine stock and custom products rather than working with all custom items and eliminating some or the entire cost of dies and tooling.

Here are two recent examples:

Custom partitions and pads with stock RSC shipping boxes

Pente5 is a fast growing manufacturer of organic extracts which are all packed in glass bottles. They needed to create a four pack shipper case as well as a six pack shipper case for a new product launch.

We had no choice but to create custom pads and partitions for them but we intentionally designed them to fit two of our stock boxes. The finished product turned out great and we were able to avoid a higher cost custom box. This also minimized the amount of inventory they would have to buy and stock for their new product. (more…)

I think most would agree that corrugated board is one of the greenest packaging materials currently available. You can buy it with a high or 100% recycled content and when it is no longer needed, it can easily and readily be recycled to serve another day and another packaging application.

Partitions have been rediscovered by the green and packaging communities as a great way to solve a packaging or damage problem, while reducing material and labor costs when compared to other product protection options. Best of all, it can all be accomplished with undeniably eco friendly, corrugated board.

Corrugated Partitions – Not Just for Liquor Bottles Anymore

Historically corrugated partitions have been a mainstay in the liquor and bottled beverage industry because they do such an excellent job of separating and protecting one product from another. Obviously bottle to bottle damage is virtually eliminated and other benefits are also enjoyed.

• Labels are not marred or damaged in shipment because label to label abrasion is prevented.
• Stacking strength is dramatically increased, even when the bottled and cased products are heavy liquids
• Bottles and jars remain upright, minimizing the possibility of leakers

New Applications for Eco Friendly Corrugated Partitions

Recently we have had a flurry of partition projects and applications and here are a few reasons why our customers chose this solution over other options we offered:

To verify count – Products were individually wrapped with Kraft paper to avoid damage and then randomly stacked and packed in a corrugated case. Our customer was being inundated by claims of incorrect counts. Coincidently the complaints were always for under shipment, never over, so we created a 20 cell partition that separated the individual products for easy, accurate count confirmation.

20 Cell Corrugated Partition

Somewhere along the line, corrugated (and chipboard) partitions fell out of favor as an inner packing material. A lot of it had to do with a desire to reduce corrugated usage and unit cost – both good objectives.

However, corrugated partitions can sometimes reduce overall packaging usage and unit cost, while providing a number of other important sustainable benefits. (more…)