Have you ever thought about how many variants of folding boxes there are? You'll find the variety is unmanageable. Packaging experts work every day to develop and produce new solutions and find optimal materials for them.

It doesn't matter whether it's simple pizza boxes or packaging for sensitive electronic products, shipping cartons or boxes for expensive luxury perfumes, because there are almost no limits to the demands of the market, but also to the imagination of manufacturers.

Folding cartons are a classic in the field of packaging and hold a wide variety of options for a wide range of industries. The choice of materials is concentrated on three major groups - white cardboard, brown cardboard and, for some time now, grass boxboard, which has particular advantages in terms of sustainability.

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In which industries are folding cartons used?

There is hardly a sector in which folding cartons made of cardboard are not used, whether in industry, trade or commerce, because basically almost everything can be packaged with them.

They are very flexible and can always be individually adapted to the characteristics of the product to be packaged because they are highly variable in size, shape and also printability. There are numerous areas in which folding cartons are irreplaceable as packaging:

• Cosmetics manufacturer
  
• Pharmaceutical industry
• Electrical industry
• the entire logistics industry
• Food manufacturer
• Food supplements
• Shoe manufacturers
• Book publishers

In all industries where folding cartons are used, they serve, among other things, as:

• Product packaging
• Shipping packaging
• Sales packaging
• Gift box.

A brief history of the folding box

Like so many innovations in recent history, the first folding cartons were created in the United States in 1839. Initially, they were still stuck together with special pins. From 1879, further technical developments enabled them to be cut and punched with machines.

Then, from 1895, the invention of the first gluing machines also made industrial gluing possible. However, the real boom began in the 20th century. Folding cartons were now used for countless new products and goods coming onto the market, as they can be manufactured completely individually according to the customer's wishes.

There are virtually no limits to the possible shapes and graphic design using modern printing and finishing processes such as embossing, varnishing or lasering.

Companies that use folding boxes can use them to combine the beautiful with the useful:

On the one hand they serve as a protective cover for the products and on the other hand they transport the corporate identity and the brand message in an outstanding design.

How are folding boxes made?

 

The development of computer technology in recent decades has set new standards in the manufacture of folding cartons. Based on the characteristics of the product to be packaged and its dimensions, designers develop the cartons with the help of CAD software, as used in other industries.

On this basis, the materials are then selected and the best way to make them is defined. After this step, the first prototype is created. This can then be used to plan the exact production process, in which the cardboard sheets are first printed.

After printing, the sheets are die-cut and the excess edge and intermediate areas are discarded. Normally, the sheets are delivered to the manufacturer lying flat, where they are then unfolded and glued if necessary before the product goes in.

White cardboard - what are the variants?

White cardboard box clearly stands out visually from other products in the category. The light surface immediately catches the eye at the point of sale and radiates a certain elegance. Therefore, the material is particularly suitable for packaging high-quality products and presenting them to the customer.

The same applies to shipping packaging delivered to the recipient by mail or other logistics company.

The market provides outer packaging made of white cardboard in various thicknesses. The lightweight variants are particularly easy to transport and store. Thanks to the light background, lettering and printing have a special luminosity that makes any graphic design stand out.

Thicker variants of white cardboard packaging offer themselves as shipping packaging. In this segment, there are flat and narrow cartons as well as those suitable for large and long contents. Lengths of more than 500 mm are no problem, for example to ship posters, billboards or other large-format printed matter.

A mixed form is formed by cardboard boxes that are only white on the outside. In this case, brown or other colored cardboard boxes are covered with a white top layer. This also ensures a high-quality appearance when closed. These products are generally less expensive than completely white cardboard boxes and are particularly environmentally friendly. In most cases, this variant is used for shipping all kinds of products, as it can be very stable, depending on the type.

The name corrugated board comes from the fact that several layers of flat and corrugated paper are glued together during production. Due to the corrugated structure brown cardboard boxes achieve high strength. The more corrugated layers such cardboard has, the more stable the boxes made from it are in the end. Common variants are:

• Single face corrugated board: consists of one layer of flat paper and one layer of corrugated paper.
• 1-wall corrugated board: is composed of two layers of flat paper and one layer of corrugated paper.
• 2 corrugated board: three layers flat, two layers corrugated.
• 3 corrugated board: four layers flat, three layers corrugated.

In addition, the corrugation height is responsible for the stability. In most cases, it lies between 1.5 mm and 4.0 mm and can also be as little as 0.4 mm or more than 5.0 mm for special boards.

Brown cardboard boxes, like other folding boxes, are first punched out of large flat sheets in the desired shape. After unfolding, the open ends must be securely closed. Three options are available for this.

• Flap gluing: This is the most common method. Here, the protruding cardboard flaps are coated with glue and glued to the other edges.
• Strip gluing: The open edges do not have a flap, but butt directly against each other. To close, wet adhesive tape is applied over both edges from the outside.
• Stapling: The cardboard flaps are stapled together with the other edges using wire staples of various thicknesses so that a firm connection is formed.

What is grass boxboard?

grass boxboard and grass paper are still relatively new products within the packaging industry. The fibers for these come from dried grass harvested in nature reserves or from regional compensation areas. This means that no cattle feed is used.

After the drying process, the hay is compressed into pellets and further processed in the cardboard and paper mills. The manufacturing process can currently use up to 50 percent grass content. The other 50 percent forms waste paper or virgin fibers.

grass boxboard is 100 percent recyclable and can therefore be disposed of in the waste paper container and recycled without any problems.

In addition, as a natural biological product, the material is also compostable. However, this should only be done if organic inks were used for printing.

In terms of properties, folding cartons and other packaging can be made from grass boxboard just as well as from white or brown cardboard. They are in no way inferior to these in terms of stability and strength. The grass fibers are clearly visible and give the material a unique look and feel.

Depending on how high the proportion of grass fibers is, the cardboard boxes may even smell a little like hay. For companies that pay particularly attention to sustainabilitygrass boxboard is the perfect alternative to other packaging materials.

Grass paper comes from land not intended for livestock feed, grows back quickly, and is recyclable and compostable. Water consumption and CO2 emissions are reduced during production. Chemical additives are not required.

Conclusion: Advantages of the variants

Whether brown, white or grass cardboard - each variant has its advantages. Ultimately, it depends on the intended use of the folding boxes produced from it and the demands of companies on their own image.

On white cardboard, printing and graphic design look more concise, so they are more suitable for high-quality sales packaging. Brown cardboard boxes in the form of corrugated board offer maximum stability and strength for shipping goods of all kinds.

grass boxboard is particularly convincing due to its environmentally friendly production method and its natural, optical and haptic properties.

FAQ

1. What must a folding box mainly do?

   Regardless of the material chosen, folding boxes should fulfill the following functions:

   • Protect the contents from external damage.
   • Stack easily and can be stored to save space.
   • Transport the corporate identity and message of a brand.
   • Be good to recycle in terms of environmental protection and sustainability.
     
     
2. What advantages do folding cartons offer over other solutions?

   The biggest advantages of folding boxes made of white or brown cardboard as well as grass boxboard include relatively inexpensive production and numerous options for individual design, even for smaller runs. They can also be stored in a space-saving manner and are easy to unfold. Further plus points - in contrast to plastic packaging, for example - are their environmental friendliness.