Your Carton Is Your Food Packaging's Life!

By John Henry, www.changeover.com

If your product is sold in a carton, it's one of your most important marketing tools. It is what your customer sees on the store and kitchen shelf. Your carton is worth its weight in gold and needs to be treated as such because a good-looking carton sells your product. A poor-looking one may deter consumers and end up being the reason they choose your competitor's product. I'll leave it up to the graphic-arts types to handle the aesthetics. In this article I will address some of the physical aspects that can detract from your carton's appearance.

There are a number of issues to watch out for; some are carton design and converting issues, others are cartoning machine issues. Cartons are most-commonly made from bending grade paperboard. Some cartons are made from corrugated board or plastic film. Whatever the material, it needs to be properly scored, glued, and diecut.

Two issues can occur with scoring:

• The scores can be improperly positioned. This can occur when the board or the scoring die slips out of position during the converting process. The carton always wants to fold on the score line and if it is out of position, it will not fold correctly. This will cause problems in the cartoner. If the unsquared carton makes it through the cartoner, it may cause appearance problems on the shelf.