The Importance of Choosing the Right Boxes for Your Business

Packaging plays a vital role in today's fast-paced business landscape, ensuring product protection, preservation, and presentation. As the packaging industry continues to grow and adapt to changing market demands, it's crucial for companies to stay ahead and offer exceptional packaging solutions. To provide insights into this dynamic landscape, we have developed Packaging Talks - a series of conversational panels with Crawford's packaging experts. Whether you're a business owner, a packaging professional, or simply curious, our panels aim to offer valuable information and inspiration.

In this installment, we chat with Carey Bedrock, Crawford's General Sales Manager, about the importance of choosing the right corrugated boxes for your business.

Why is it important to select the right corrugated boxes for your products?

When we talk about boxes, many of our customers assume they’re all the same, but corrugated boxes are actually quite diverse. For example, in Canada, most boxes are made from nearly 100% recycled content, but this can very by manufacturer.

When selecting boxes, its important to consider factors like load size, weight, and fragility to avoid product damage. We recently worked with a food distributor who faced significant losses because their boxes couldn’t support the weight of canned goods. Their products were often rejected by retailers and returned to their plant. A single visit to their plant was sufficient for us to diagnose the issue. We recommended a different box and tape, and the problem was resolved.

Choosing the right box is crucial. Another customer shipped fragile, expensive products in standardized, one-size-fits-all boxes, resulting in significant damage. Void fill alone isn’t enough if the box is the wrong size. We’ve seen countless examples like these.

Environmental conditions are also important. If boxes are stored in industrial refrigerators or freezers, moisture absorption can weaken them. In such cases, you need to select boxes with the right glue or thickness.

When we speak with our customers about corrugated boxes, we consider all these factors—product weight, application needs, and environmental conditions—to recommend the best box for your needs, ensuring your products are securely protected.

Can you tell us more about Crawford’s value proposition?

Sure! I think its important to say that at Crawford, we take a holistic approach to evaluating our customers’ processes. Only by understanding the full picture can we truly enhance their operations and reduce costs. Our Packaging Specialists are trained to conduct on-site audits and recommend solutions that will most benefit our customers’ operations.

Corrugated boxes are just one piece of the puzzle. Depending on the scale of the business, our customers may greatly benefit from box erectors that automate box folding, improving productivity. Once their boxes are packed, our void fill solutions – ranging from dispensers to a broad range of materials – can further streamline the process. Additionally, we offer semi- and fully automatic case sealing equipment to expedite box sealing, and we ensure they use the right tape for their specific box type. The wrong tape can lead to unsealed boxes, so choosing correctly is crucial.

We also offer programs to reduce inventory costs, freeing up cash flow. For ongoing box orders, our stock and release programs are amazing, we are helping our customers manage their space more effectively – because in a warehouse space is money

Our value proposition is simple – we are deeply committed to ensuring our customers have the right equipment, consumables, and support to achieve productivity and performance improvements. It all comes down to maximizing their productivity while minimizing operational costs. And everyone at Crawford will tell you the same thing.

To find out more about the corrugated boxes offered by Crawford Packaging, connect with our Packaging Specialists.