Corrugated Cartons and Boxes for Clothing Shipments
Fluted board, folded into the shipping box — strengths, flutes, styles, and the manufacturers who make them.
A corrugated carton is an engineered material folded into a box. Corrugated board sandwiches a fluted — wavy — paper medium between flat linerboards, and that wave is the source of its remarkable strength for weight: the flutes act as tiny arches, resisting crush and stacking load while the board stays light enough to ship economically. This page is the directory of the manufacturers who turn that board into the shipping cartons, retail boxes and displays the clothing industry packs in, and an introduction to the choices between them.
Flutes, Walls and Strength
The flute is named by its size. Large flutes — A and C — give cushioning and stacking strength; small flutes — B, and the finer E, F and N — give a smoother print surface, crisper folding and resistance to flat crush. Makers offer combinations across the alphabet: one manufacturer listed below works in A, B, C and F flutes, another across B, C, D, E and N, matching the board to whether the box must stack, print, fold or display.
Walls multiply the structure. A single-wall board serves ordinary shipping; double and triple walls serve weight and abuse. The range in these listings runs from 150 lb single wall to 600 lb triple wall from one maker — the span between a carton of shirts and a carton that can carry a small machine. Strength is tested and stated, so a buyer specifies a duty, not a hope: the load, the stack height, the journey.
Beyond the standard shipping case, corrugated makes the whole family in these listings: regular slotted and full-overlap cartons, telescoping and die-cut boxes, five-panel wraps, dividers and partitions, pads and sheets, bulk boxes, corrugated pallets, retail displays and high-graphics printed packaging, with coatings and label laminating where the box must also sell.
Real-Time, Custom and Stock Supply
The manufacturers here sell in different rhythms. A 'real time' manufacturer makes cartons to order as they are needed, freeing the customer's cash flow and warehouse space — no room given to stored boxes, less labour and handling. Structural design centres create and test samples to confirm size, style and strength before production, so a custom carton is proven on the bench before it is ordered by the thousand.
Stock supply answers the opposite need: one maker-distributor listed below, founded in 1969, keeps a ready-to-ship inventory of over 650 box sizes — between one million and one and a half million boxes in stock — alongside packaging supplies and design services, shipping throughout the United States and North America from Dayton, Ohio. Between the rhythms sit the regional and specialist makers: corrugated and foam packaging with custom crating in the Northwest, a Singapore and Malaysia board maker running up to five corrugators a day, and a British family firm manufacturing to customer requirements behind its own delivery fleet.
For an apparel shipper, the choice is volume and variety: a fixed programme of sizes suits made-to-order or bulk stock buying; a shifting mix of styles and counts suits a deep stock range with design help. Either way, the specification work is shared — these manufacturers design as well as make, and a shipper who brings the garment counts and the journey, not just a box size, gets the better box.
Corrugated Cartons & Boxes — Suppliers & Manufacturers
Acme Corrugated Box Co., Inc.
Acme is a 'real time' manufacturer of corrugated shipping containers and corrugated packaging products. Bringing real-time manufacturing capabilities to customers helps free up cash flow, reduce the warehouse space required (better used for internal processing), and require less labour and handling.
Supplies: Corrugated shipping containers and packaging, made in real time
Akers Packaging Service, Inc.
Akers offers solutions to all corrugated applications, designing and manufacturing custom corrugated materials and packaging products to specification: traditional brown boxes, displays, high graphics, assembled partitions, auto-bottom products, hazardous materials packaging, pre-printed products, build-ups, bulk boxes, corrugated pallets, book packaging and labelled products, with A, B, C and F flute capabilities and Michelman coating.
Supplies: Custom corrugated boxes, displays, partitions and bulk boxes
American Packaging Group
American Packaging designs and manufactures all types of custom corrugated boxes including retail boxes, shipping boxes and cases, through numerous container and sheet plants. It manufactures from 150 lb single wall to 600 lb triple wall, with B, C, D, E and N flute, single-facing corrugated with four-colour process label laminating or direct flexo printing, and structural design centres that create test samples before production — shipping anywhere from plants around the country.
Supplies: Custom corrugated boxes from 150 lb single wall to 600 lb triple wall
Argrov Box Co.
Argrov is a manufacturer and distributor of corrugated boxes and packaging supplies, founded in 1969, providing 'Combo Packaging Solutions' — boxes and corrugated products, packaging supplies and value-added packaging design services. Its manufacturing and warehouse facilities are in Dayton, Ohio, it ships throughout the United States and North America, and it keeps a ready-to-ship inventory of over 650 box sizes, with between 1 million and 1.5 million boxes in inventory at any time.
Supplies: Stock and custom corrugated boxes and packaging supplies
Columbia Corrugated Box and Packaging Resources
Columbia Corrugated Box and Packaging Resources together form one of the largest packaging and packaging services companies in the Northwest, offering packaging design, professional testing, just-in-time and stocking programmes, all styles and types of corrugated and foam packaging, custom wood and cushion crating, and prompt delivery by a company-owned fleet of trucks.
Supplies: Corrugated and foam packaging, design, testing and crating
Far East Packaging
Far East Packaging is a leading corrugated board and carton maker in Singapore and Malaysia, operating for over 27 years and running up to five corrugators a day for short, reliable delivery times. It supplies corrugated board sheets and cartons in a wide range of paper grades and flutes, including regular slotted, full-overlap, full telescoping and half-slotted cartons, five-panel wraps, cut-out wraps, custom die-cut boxes, dividers, pads and single-face sheets and rolls.
Supplies: Corrugated board and cartons in a wide range of grades and flutes
Krystals
Krystals, established in 1986, is a family-run British manufacturer of corrugated boxes to customer-specific requirements, based in a modern purpose-built factory in Lincoln. It prides itself on product quality, customer service and rapid response from inquiry to well after delivery, helped by its own fleet of vehicles, and has invested in a state-of-the-art Japanese case maker and automatic die-cutting machine.
Supplies: Custom corrugated boxes made to order in the United Kingdom
LPS Industries
LPS Industries holds ISO 9001:2000 certification and organises its offer in three product groups. Flexible packaging covers custom laminated roll stock, barrier pouches, resealable polyethylene bags and zipper profiles. Coated products cover pressure-sensitive envelopes and labels and adhesive coating in fullgum and pattern, hot melt and aqueous forms. General packaging covers packaging systems and accessories, identification products and hazardous material shippers — produced in modern facilities on state-of-the-art equipment.
Supplies: Flexible packaging, coated products and general packaging systems
Phoenix Packaging Inc.
Phoenix Packaging is a multi-faceted production operation in Central Pennsylvania. As a corrugated manufacturer it supplies all sizes of corrugated cartons, stock boxes, custom boxes, die cuts, pads, sheets and partitions, markets tapes, kraft paper, plastics, polyurethanes, polystyrenes, ethafoams and other foam products, designs with substrates including ESD boards, chipboard, military boards, foam core and corrugated fiberboard, and supplies packaging equipment, strapping, tapes, peanuts, stretch films and shrink films.
Supplies: Corrugated cartons, die cuts, partitions and packaging supplies
Vanguard Packaging
Vanguard Packaging supplies corrugated cartons, retail packaging, blister cards and related packaging.
Supplies: Corrugated cartons, retail packaging and blister cards
Specifying a Corrugated Carton
Specify inside dimensions, in the order length, width, depth, and state the duty: contents weight, stack, journey and any print or display role. The flute and wall follow from the duty with the manufacturer's advice — and a structural sample proves the choice, which is why the design centres in these listings exist.
Then plan the carton's working life with it: how it erects and tapes at the bench, how it labels, how it strapping-finishes, and how it opens at the far end without a blade meeting a garment. A corrugated carton is a small system, and the manufacturers listed here are the people who engineer it.
Common Questions
What do flute letters like A, B and C mean on corrugated board?
The letter names the size of the wave — the flute — inside corrugated board. Large flutes such as A and C give cushioning and stacking strength; smaller flutes such as B, E, F and N give a smoother print surface and crisper folding. Manufacturers combine flutes and walls — from 150 lb single wall to 600 lb triple wall — to match a box's duty.
What styles of corrugated box can manufacturers make?
Beyond regular slotted shipping cartons: full-overlap and telescoping cartons, half-slotted cartons, five-panel wraps, custom die-cut boxes, dividers and partitions, pads and sheets, bulk boxes, corrugated pallets, retail displays and high-graphics printed packaging, with label laminating and direct flexo printing where the box must also sell.
Should I buy corrugated cartons made to order or from stock?
Made-to-order ('real time') manufacture suits a fixed programme: cartons arrive as needed, freeing cash flow and warehouse space, with structural design centres proving size and strength in samples first. Stock supply suits a shifting mix: one listed maker-distributor keeps over 650 box sizes ready to ship, with a million or more boxes in inventory.
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