The folding carton is responsible for creating the packaging industry that we see today. If it hadn’t been created, the packaging industry wouldn’t be nearly as important or big as it is. Beginning the late 1800s, the folding carton rose in use and important. What is a folding carton? A folding carton is built out of paperboard, and it then goes through a cutting, folding, and lamination process and then it undergoes printing for transport to a packager. The cartons are sent out flat to a packager, and the company will have its own tools to fold it up into is ultimate shape as a container for an item. The traditional example of a carton like this is a cereal box. People are unaware of just how vital the folding carton is to their daily life and shopping experience. Go to any grocery store and try to pick out a folding carton. You will see them everywhere.
History
In the early 1800s, they were made manually by hand. Technology has jumped ahead a lot since then, and now folding cartons are made by machine. Originally, they were patched together with string and tacks. Pretty strange, right?
Folding Cartons
Folding cartons are a massive industry today, much more so than they were in the late 1800s when they were first in use. Folding cartons account for more than $80 billion in sales. That is massive. Usually, cylinder board created from pulp from scrap paper that has been reprocessed is the fodder for the majority of packages we see today. Cartons used for foodstuffs are made from a much better grade, and lighter as well. Due to cutting machinery’s limitations, the thickness of the board is limited, and folding cartons are usually restricted to holding just a couple of pounds of material.