It covers a one-piece lock-bottom food box with a pre-glued side seam and, where specified, an integrated carrying handle. UGI Packging ships the boxes flat. The customer opens the flat blank and locks the bottom by hand before use, while the side seam has already been glued during factory production.

The current UGI Packging production route requires approximately two days to prepare and stabilize the automatic folder-gluer for this structure. The team calibrates the lock-bottom fold angles, adjusts glue pressure, aligns feeding and folding positions and matches the machine to the die-cut crease lines before saleable production can continue.

UGI Packging production experience shows that setup can consume several hundred to more than one thousand trial boxes. These pieces are used while the folding sequence, glue application and structural alignment are brought into the approved production condition.

A small order may finish soon after the machine becomes stable. In that situation, the two-day setup labour and the trial-box loss are divided across only a small number of saleable boxes. For a very short run, those setup costs can be greater than the paper cost of the finished boxes themselves.

Manual brush-gluing is technically possible, but it is not a cost-neutral replacement. Under the current UGI Packging workflow, manual production raises the unit production cost by approximately 2-4 times, extends the production period, reduces finished-box consistency and creates a higher risk of glue opening.

A non-stock size requires a new metal die-cutting die for the carton outline, lock-bottom geometry, creases and handle openings. The one-time die cost is essentially fixed for the same structure whether the order contains 2,000 or 30,000 boxes, so a smaller order carries more die cost per box.

Printed logos and graphics require CTP aluminium plates under the current UGI Packging offset-printing route. CMYK needs four plates, and separately printed spot colours require corresponding additional plates. These printing plates are separate from the die-cutting die and add another fixed preparation cost.

For the stated burger and children meal-box application, UGI Packging requires food-contact grease-resistant laminated white card. The material is purchased in large rolls, and one roll can produce tens of thousands of boxes. A small custom-size order cannot economically consume a dedicated roll, while mixing jobs can create grammage, coating-thickness or colour differences.

The current route is printing, die cutting, folder-gluing and inspection. UGI Packging records combined process loss of approximately 8-12%, including print registration loss, die-cut edge and trim waste, glue-opening rejects and cracking near the carrying-handle position.

UGI Packging may plan 2,200-2,400 production pieces to obtain 2,000 acceptable finished boxes for this structure. Fixed make-ready waste and percentage process loss are separate planning inputs, so the scheduled input is not calculated from one percentage alone.

No. The numbers on this page describe the current UGI Packging route for this lock-bottom structure. Another box style, stock material, printing route, die layout or gluing method can produce a different economical production quantity. The order must be evaluated against the actual specification.

Provide the finished dimensions, dieline or box style, carrying-handle requirements, paper and coating specification, food type and contact conditions, print artwork, process colours and spot colours, finished quantity and destination requirements. UGI Packging can then identify the actual tooling, material unit, setup route and planned production allowance.