“Corrugated—Not Cardboard—101” grew out of a new sales rep’s learning about the corrugated packaging industry and supporting the purchasing and marketing departments. Here’s what our customer purchasing agents, entrepreneurs, business owners, and product marketers need to know about the corrugated packaging industry.
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First, corrugated packaging is not cardboard packaging.
Often, you’ll hear someone call a sturdy shipping box a “cardboard box.” Similarly, they may decide to create a “cardboard” retail display. Neither of these is correct. The correct term is corrugated.
The packaging industry doesn’t use “cardboard” and “corrugated” interchangeably.
Cardboard and Chipboard
On the one hand, “cardboard” is any single board made from thick paper pulp. This includes everything from a birthday card to what the packaging industry calls chipboard. Chipboard is the type of used to build, for instance, shoeboxes or thin folding cartons, such as cereal boxes. Chipboard’s purpose is to contain lightweight items.
However, you would never ship your products in a cardboard (or chipboard) box. Corrugated shippers are reserved for that role.
Corrugated Shippers and Other Corrugated Boxes
Corrugated shippers are the strong, sturdy boxes that hold, for example, 25 cereal boxes (folding cartons) for shipment to the grocery store.
But chipboard boxes aren’t the only types of boxes that travel in shippers. Shippers may also hold multiple corrugated boxes or other packaged (or nonpackaged) items.
Corrugated boxes (including shipping boxes) are made of (at least) three sheets of containerboard, thick paperboard. Two flat liner sheets form the outside, the “bread” of the sandwich. The middle sheet, or medium (the “meat” of the sandwich), contains the classic fluted, wavy shape. A starchy glue holds these three boards together for added strength.
The same principle that applies to a bundle of sticks is relevant here. You can easily snap one stick or twig, but if you tie (or in this case, glue) them together, they are much more durable.
These three glued-together paperboard sheets are called corrugated sheets.
Shipping boxes are often made of kraft corrugated, but not always.
(Above) Two flat liner sheets sandwich a fluted medium; a starchy glue holds the three together for strength. The same principle that applies to a bundle of sticks is relevant here. You can easily snap one stick or twig, but if you tie (or in this case, glue) them together, they are much more durable.
(Above) A variety of kraft shipping boxes in different sizes and styles, including one with die-cuts.
Pro Tip: Using the Correct Terminology Helps Everyone
If you don’t understand a corrugated term, ask your account manager to explain what it means.
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Second, corrugated sheets aren’t only used for shipping boxes (or “shippers”).
Our clients also use corrugated for recyclable point-of-purchase (POP) displays. Additionally, we sometimes ship items directly in the POP display, as we did for a mustard manufacturer.
Creating successful retail displays requires specialized knowledge. To learn more, read:
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15 Tips for Attractive Retail Product Displays That Sell More Products
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8 Steps to Successful Custom, Point-of-Purchase (POP) Displays
Likewise, many items sell off the shelves in branded corrugated packaging designed specifically for that product. Several factors are at play here.
First, we can create the brand colors, look, and feel. Corrugated can be ANY color, including bright white and sophisticated black. Plus, we can print directly on the corrugated, adding to the branding and messaging.
Furthermore, the packaging can be designed (often with interior packaging such as pads, tubes, or partitions). With the custom design and interior packaging, the product fits snugly in the box, protecting it from damage.
(Above) We use corrugated materials to create a variety of retail display styles.
(Above) We manufacture these trays for a mustard producer. These trays are prototypes; the actual displays showcased the customer’s branding.
(Above) Notice the bright printed colors on oyster-white corrugated; the inside is kraft. Oyster white or color printing is also available for the inside of the box.
(Above) Printing on kraft corrugated creates more muted jewel tones.
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Third, how corrugated is made. . . and what it means for your budget
As mentioned earlier, corrugated sheets are typically built from three boards glued together.
Corrugated Material and Your Speed to Market
We have our own corrugator, so we can produce corrugated boards quickly. That means we can complete your packaging faster.
Types of Corrugated Materials and Your Product Protection
Not all corrugated boards are created equal. ECT (Edge Crush Test) measures corrugated strength. The most common corrugated board is 32 ECT, which handles standard shipping needs. For heavier items like juice bottles, 44 ECT is appropriate. In this case, the flat liner boards (the bread) use heavier, thicker paper than 32 ECT. This heavier ECT provides higher stacking strength, while double-wall options offer heavy-duty protection. (If you ever run across unfamiliar corrugated terms, such as flutes, double-face, or ECT, our corrugated glossary makes them easy to look up.)
Learn more about single-face, double-face, double-wall, and triple-wall corrugated boards in this resource about board grades and flutes.
Printing on Corrugated
After the boards come off the corrugator, we use a print plate to overprint them. We can reuse your print plate repeatedly, saving you money on repeat orders..
Cutting, or Tooling
The next step is cutting the box, or tooling. However, not all boxes require tooling. For example, an RSC (regular slotted container) is a standard box that does not require tooling. To view an RSC and other slotted containers, go to our box types page.
For tooling, we use a cutting die to cut the exact box or display size and shape. Like the print plate, we can reuse the cutting die.
We’ve created dies that cut boxes for shipping very large household appliances and those as small as ring boxes. The die shape can also vary. For example, the box might include various angles or air holes. Alternatively, it may have slots and notches to turn into a POP display. We even create flat boxes to house a single poster at a time.
Once you’re set up with your print plate and die, you’re good to go. Therefore, we charge a one-time setup fee for the dies and print plates our structural designers create for you. In fact, we keep an extensive library of customers’ dies and print plates, cataloged and ready to reuse.
Folding and Gluing
After printing and cutting, we fold and glue the boards. At Wertheimer Box, we have machines that rapidly print, cut, fold, and glue all on the same machine.
(Above) We catalog our customer cutting dies in our plant for easy access. Notice the variety of die types and sizes.
(Above) We have machines that can rapidly print, cut, fold, and glue in a single pass.
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Fourth, plan ahead to avoid “fire drills.”
We love speed, but we prefer planning. Our warehousing program is the ultimate insurance policy against production line downtime. Let us manage your inventory so you never have to deal with a STAT emergency. Emergency manufacturing is stressful for both our customers and our team.
The Multi-step Process Typically Takes Time
While we’re known for quick turnaround times, the corrugated packaging process generally takes, at minimum, a few days. That’s because we need to:
- Receive the paper
- Make the boards
- Apply the branding (if dies and print plates aren’t already created)
- Print, cut, fold, glue, and
- Transport the boxes (or POP displays)
Pro Tip: Stay on Top of Inventory
Also, report when you are running out of a box style as soon as possible. It’s important to know approximate usage and manage your inventory.
Preventing Inventory Management Problems
One solution we offer our customers is to warehouse and manage packaging inventory for you. By warehousing and managing your inventory, we can help ensure that your boxes are available when you need them.
Why We’re Typically Fast
Overall, we can show you just how fast we CAN make packaging. After all, Wertheimer Box has been doing this for more than 85 years. What’s more, we own our own:
- Trucks
- Corrugator
- Machines
Read more packaging advice for new product managers and entrepreneurs.
Pro Tip: Save Time and Money by Ensuring Your Team Never Crisscrosses Packaging Skids
One way to avoid running out of boxes is to ensure that production line workers always use the right box for the right product. Crisscrossing is when packing workers pull a box from the wrong skid to ship the product.
This is one reason a customer may run out of boxes too soon.
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To illustrate, if workers pull from the wrong box skid and place a small product “A” into a larger Box “B,” it will fit just fine. A small product can fit in a too-large box.
However, the company will soon run out of Box B.
What’s left? More of Box A.
But what happens when the larger product “B” needs to be shipped? It cannot fit in the small Box A. It’s too big.
The product manufacturing line is at risk of going down. So, crisscrossing can cause issues.
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Finally, at Wertheimer Box, no job is too small or too large.
Finally, at Wertheimer Box, no job is too small or too large. Whether you need a short run of custom retail displays or high-volume shipping containers, our team has the tools and experience to deliver with added value. Contact an account manager today to discuss your next packaging project. Or complete the consultation form below.
Doug Wertheimer
