If you’re a manufacturer or primary producer who’s trading with other businesses, you’re looking for industrial packaging solutions.
Unlike commercial packaging, which is designed to package and ship products to consumers, industrial packaging is specifically designed to package business-to-business (B2B) materials.
You may be supplying raw materials, such as timber, or even hazardous materials in bulk. Perhaps you’re packaging parts, such as automative parts, or other machinery. You may be supplying large quantities of a product, to companies which package the product for consumers.
You have important concerns when it comes to packaging supplies and packaging companies.
What’s most important about industrial packaging?
Unlike someone who’s choosing retail packaging, when you’re searching for industrial packaging solutions, you may need to design your own. You may hire a packaging designer and engineer to develop a specific solution, using common packaging materials, such as cardboard and wood.
Your vital, unavoidable concerns are:
- Product safety: you want your products to reach their destination without damage.
- Safety in handling. Your products may be large, or heavy, or liquid. They’re supplied in bulk, so the safety of handlers is important.
- Ease of use. The companies buying your products may be using special machinery or specialized processes to use, or package them. Developing product packaging which enables your products to be used as soon as they arrive may help to make you a preferred supplier.
- Waste and sustainability. The 2025 National Packaging Targets are important to companies which use packaging. You need your packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
- Cost. Keeping your other concerns in mind, you want your packaging to be cost-effective, only paying as much as you need, so that your products arrive safely, and can be handled safely and quickly too.
Let’s look at popular packaging materials which are used in creating industrial packaging solutions.
1. Wood: cost-effective, and durable, to keep your products safe
When you’re shipping B2B products, they may be bulky and heavy. Often they need to be stored before use too, so you may select a material like wood, which can be relatively lightweight (saving on shipping costs), as well as inexpensive, as part of your solution.
2. Cardboard: corrugated cardboard is efficient, low-cost, and recyclable
Corrugated cardboard is useful in industrial packaging, especially if you’re shipping products which are fragile. The flutes (corrugations) in the layers of this type of cardboard operate much like a hard hat. They protect products from crushing, and sudden shocks and impacts.
If you choose this type of packaging, you may need it to be specially cut, so that it conforms to your products.
3. Void fill materials: they offer product safety
Various types of void fill packaging are available, including air pillows, foam sheets, kraft paper, and packaging peanuts.
These materials are used to protect products in cartons and other containers, both to ensure that they don’t move around, and to cushion them from impact on a container’s sides.
4. Stretch films, for machines or manual use
Stretch film is a popular industrial packaging material. Commonly, it’s used to wrap cartons and products on pallets, both securing and protecting the products.
Available in many different forms, stretch film is cost-effective. Common forms include reinforced stretch, vented stretch, and no-cling stretch.
5. Shrink films, made of various types of plastics
Shrink films are used to package many different types of products, ranging from machinery to food. These films are used in packaging machines, such as sealers, and are also available in tubes.
Many other types of tough materials are used in industrial packaging, including steel, and specially-engineered plastics.
Unavoidable aspects of industrial packaging
When you’re looking at solutions, packaging supplies, and packaging companies, you have many factors to keep in mind.
They include:
- Your products.
- The end users.
- Disposal of the packaging: can the packaging be reused?
- Cost: your budget.
Let’s look at them in more detail.
Your products’ shape, size, weight, and viability
When looking at industrial packaging, you need to weigh your products, and measure them, so that you can buy the best types of packaging.
Another factor: your products’ viability. Will the product be stored, and where? How long is the product viable — does it have a “use by” date?
Users: discuss their requirements in packaging, and packaging disposal
When you’re creating product packaging, talk to your customers. Do they have specific requirements of which you need to be aware?
Your budget: what can you reasonably afford?
Your products need to be competitive. However, it’s unwise to skimp on industrial packaging. Your customers depend on products arriving safely. If your products arrive in an imperfect condition, you may lose customers.
Industrial packaging is challenging: get advice from packaging companies
It’s vital to get as much advice as you can when you’re creating industrial packaging solutions for your products.
Contact packaging companies for their advice. They have valuable experience in industrial packaging.
