Carton Boxmakers Shifting Strategies

Advantage: folding carton converters

If competition from flexible packaging isn't enough, folding carton converters may soon find corrugated converters knocking on their customers' doors as well, offering microflute constructions.

These recently introduced "small-flute" materials offer superior strength, light weight, and a "non-fluted" surface conducive to high-end graphics. What folding carton makers have in their favor, and what may be to their advantage, is that microflute materials can easily be run through their existing carton presses, whereas corrugated converters would most likely have to buy into the technology to run such thin gauge materials.