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Packed for safe travels
Linda Casey
January 30, 2014
4 Min Read
Expandos.protecting.ceramic.charger
Expandos.protecting.ceramic.charger
Meeting product protection needs when distribution streams vary from pallets sent via dedicated truck systems to case shipments delivered by package delivery services can be a challenge for packaged goods companies, especially as consumers and retailer-customers are increasingly voicing concerns about over-packaging.
This was the challenge facing Ten Strawberry Street, Denver, CO, which imports its dinnerware, glassware and flatware from factories around the globe, including manufacturers in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Poland, Germany and Belgium, and repackages them for retailer-customers. In addition to repackaging product for shipment to retailers’ distribution centers in secured pallets, Ten Strawberry Street sends product by the case via UPS and FedEx.
Pyramids form nests inside shippers
When the distributor started having problems with its shipments to Walmart, it quickly took the retailer’s advice to re-examine its packaging. “Ten Strawberry Street had some pretty serious damage issues and they were actually referred to us through one of their customers,” recalls Jeff Boothman, president of FoldedPak LLC, a supplier of protective, paper-based, packaging material that forms structures specifically engineered to absorb energy and provide clean unpacking experiences without large warehouse space requirements.
When Ten Strawberry Street first looked at the product, which is sold as a flat material web called ExpandOS—short for expand on site, the packaging solution was fairly new to the market. “I was a bit of guinea pig,” Zachary Zucker, COO of Ten Strawberry Street, comments.
The distributor was presented with a proof-of-concept that was nearly a literal interpretation of the pyramid’s nesting capabilities. “ExpandOS sent me a raw egg in a package from New York to Denver, and the egg showed up in one piece,” Zucker exclaims. “We’ve been using it pretty much exclusively for the last two years.”
A sustainable manufacturing process
Not only does the packaging’s functionality harken back to nature’s own fragile container—the nest— ExpandOS is made from eco-conscious material using an efficient manufacturing process. “ExpandOS is made from 100 percent post-industrial waste,” Boothman says. “It’s essentially a waste stream from the industrial process that creates beverage cartons. It’s first-quality material that’s just as good as what they’re actually making beverage cartons out of.”
When the beverage carton company cuts the cartons out of the web, it doesn’t use the entire width of the web. The remaining material typically would be repulped to be used as pre-consumer recycled fiber. The ExpandOS material enables use of the scrap material without repulping, thus eliminating the carbon footprint associated with the repulping process.
FoldedPak says that each 1,000 lbs of post-industrial waste ExpandOS averts from the repulping process saves 888 lb of CO2, which is the equivalent of taking 3.9 cars off the road for a week.
Flat-out productivity booster
Additionally, ExpandOS is sold as a web of folded material, with a small physical footprint and no core to dispose of. This web is die-cut so an Expander machine can create pyramid-shaped packing material with 38 “fingers” designed to cling together using all three sides of the pyramid.
“ExpandOS expands at a 25:1 ratio,” says Boothman. “You don’t have to have a thousand cubic ft of storage space right next to the pack-out line. You can have a pallet of our paper, which is maybe 4 feet tall, and make 1,000 cubic feet of protective fill.”
This lets Ten Strawberry Street keep its pack-out process compact, which currently is a primarily manual endeavor. For example, its dinnerware orders are manually pulled and staged. Each set arrives at the plant in primary packaging, so workers need only to cushion these packages for transport. To this aim, worker will manually erect each case, place 1 in. of ExpandOS at the bottom, set the primary package in the shipper, and flow ExpandOS over and around the primary packaging before manually taping the case closed. Product pallets are built manually, then wrapped by stretchwrapper supplied by Orion Packaging LLC.
Branded for the future
In addition to leveraging EspandOS’ protective properties, Ten Strawberry Street has started to take advantage of the marketing benefits of printed ExpandOS triangles versus the plain triangles it has been using. This is part of an ongoing brand awareness campaign for the distributor, which isn’t shy about expanding business offerings. “When we [Zucker’s family] bought the company out of bankruptcy, it had one SKU,” Zucker explains. “Over the last 15 years, we’ve been able to grow the line and diversify ourselves in a few different markets.” The strategy seems paying off: Ten Strawberry Street opened its first retail store in 2010.
FoldedPak LLC., 866/909-6266. www.ExpandOS.com
Orion Packaging LLC, a div. of Pro Mach, 800/333-6556. www.orionpackaging.com
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