Retail Packaging - Prior Packaging

Retail cartons are the primary individual packaging of goods, cartons have 2 main functions, firstly they serve to protect the product from point of manufacture to the end use and secondly and arguably just as important they need to sell and promote your product.

Prior Packaging specialise in supplying printed retail packaging to industries across the country including food and drink, confectionery, cosmetics, publishing and electrical to name a few.

We work hard with clients to develop retail packaging that will catch the consumer’s eye whilst retaining consistency through existing brand awareness. We strive to constantly develop new approaches and techniques to the design process that in turn will increase your sales and profitability. What can we do to your retail boxes to make it stand out just that little more than your competitors? Speak to one of our experienced team to see.

We’re able to offer lithographic print up to 8 colours with different finishes including gloss/matt varnishes, OPP laminates, specialist varnishes, foil blocking, embossing and window patching. Materials range from direct print cartonboard cartons to litho laminated corrugated packaging.

Case Study

Brief

An airline food manufacturer approached us to create a bespoke snack-box for American Airlines, we were the obvious choice for our extensive knowledge in the snack box and airline catering industry. The comprehensive brief from American Airlines included:-

Sturdy enough to withstand packing and transportation but easily enough for the cabin crew to crush when disposing off.
Quick for the packers to assemble
To include a separate compartment for a flow wrapped bread roll so the cabin crew can drop it in inflight without opening the carton
Must conform to American Airlines brand guidelines
Size must fit economically into an atlas tray used in the airline trollies.

Challenge

Evidently with such a big name brand American Airlines needed a top quality constructional design. The biggest challenge was to find a solution to enable the cabin crew to effectively crush the packaging easily when disposing to minimize space during flight whilst retaining a carton capable of surviving the rigors of being packed, palletised and transported to various airports across the country.

The second biggest challenge was for our print team to set-up the artwork within American Airlines worldwide brand guidelines that required a special ink formulation to achieve an exact colour match to American Airlines bespoke blue.

Result

The brief was achieved by close co-operation between our client and American Airlines and the design time here. The end result was a carton die-cut to shape with an enclosed ‘snack box’ compartment 2 point glued for quick assembly, incorporating glued turnover sides on a second gluing pass for maximum visual appeal and to avoid unsightly raw edges with a self make up open section for the bread roll. Drawing on many years of expertise in cardboard engineering we managed to find a solution to the cabin crew being able to crush the snack-box, by cleverly placing perforations strategically in 4 positions across the side faces keeping strength across the perimeter and requiring minimal effort to collapse the carton when pushed and crushed in the right place.

With simple graphics achieved by printing 5 colours and an overall gloss UV varnish we’d ticked all the boxes and both our client and American Airlines were extremely pleased with the end result

Other Work