Packaging Machinery - News, Technology and Reviews

Sir Malcolm Thornhill produced the first commercial cardboard box in England in 1817.  Cardboard boxes are low cost, easily purchased everywhere and can be recycled once their initial use is finished. When Kellogg developed flaked cereals, their choice of product container was a cardboard box. This greatly increased the use of cardboard boxes, as other manufacturers saw the possibilities of a low cost, print friendly, lightweight container that was still sturdy enough to ship. It is now almost 200 hundred years since the first commercial application and cardboard boxes are still used extensively to package and ship products.

Different Technologies

Corrugated: The most common cardboard box is the corrugated cardboard, manufactured by gluing 3 layers of Kraft paper to form corrugated cardboard, a process invented in 1884 by Carl F. Dahl, a Swedish chemist. Kraft paper is made from wood pulp chips, created out of fast growing pine trees. The inner layer is corrugated by machine. Then a layer of Kraft paper is glued to either side, creating a sturdy cardboard that resists tearing or splitting. This cardboard is then cut into box blanks, which are printed by machine, cut and glued to become a finished shipping container. Jer Ju Machinery Co., Ltd, Tao Yuan, Taiwan, offers new and reconditioned machines to create corrugated cardboard. Also Dbc Packing Machinery Co., Ltd of Kwick, Canada offers a complete corrugated cardboard production line to produce cardboard from widths of 1400 to 2500 mm.  An automatic cardboard box filling machine (the DZ-100 box packing machine) is offered by Zhejiang Highnow Machinery Co., Ltd, Zhejiang, China. 

Niche: Box suppliers have learned to develop a good business in the niche market. One example is Hanem Boxes, a division of Morepack (Packaging) Ltd., of Ledbury, Herefordshire who offer specialist short run cartons, bespoke (custom made) cartons and all kinds of promotional packaging. They have design and sampling services, to assist their customers in accomplishing packaging that fits their needs. Sri Dhanalakshmi Printers of Tamil Nadu, India, can also supply the printing needs for custom projects.

Another surprising niche being filled by an enterprising business is in the purchase and resale of used cardboard boxes. Sometimes these are simply boxes that are misprinted or represent a manufacturing overrun. They are offered at lower prices than newly manufactured boxes. 

Other: Today the cardboard box business thrives as imaginative businesses offer services to make a manufacturer happy. Columbia Corrugated offers design and testing of packages that combine cardboard with foams and wood to create a prototype package which they will then test (in their International Safe Transit Association laboratory) to be sure the container will protect the product from manufacture to sales point. PackagingPrice.com offers bulk pricing on 700 sizes of corrugated boxes, from standard to heavy duty. They also specialize in book mailers that are very strong, yet lightweight to save on postage. Another popular product offered by PackagingPrice.com is the mailing tube, with end caps for artwork, posters, etc.