Industries
Food packaging that survives the journey
Substrates and inks specified for the way your product actually touches the pack, grease resistance where the product needs it, and structures designed to arrive intact rather than crushed.
Food & beverage
Al Ashar Printers · Lahore
The problem
Three things break a food pack, and none of them is the print
A food pack fails in one of three ways: the board takes up grease or moisture and goes soft and translucent, the ink or adhesive is wrong for the way the food touches it, or the structure collapses somewhere between your kitchen and the customer. All three are decided before anything is printed.
So the first question is not what the box should look like. It is how the food touches it — directly, through a liner, or not at all — and what journey the pack has to survive. That decides the board, the coating and the construction. The artwork is the last decision, not the first.
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Contact type decides the material
Direct contact, indirect through a liner, or no contact at all — each specifies a different board and ink system.
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Grease and moisture are structural
A pack that darkens, softens or delaminates in transit has failed, however good the print looked on the shelf.
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Delivery is a structural test
A dine-in box and a rider-bag box are not the same box, even when the artwork is identical.
Requirements
What a food pack has to satisfy
Food-contact compliance is the brand owner’s responsibility, the same way label content is in pharma. What we do is specify the pack to the requirement you give us, and document what went into it.
- Contact type is recorded on the job sheet — direct, indirect or non-contact — and the board, coating and ink system are specified to it
- Ingredient, allergen and date-coding panels laid out so they stay legible after folding and at final print size
- Structures proved as a physical sample before production — loaded, closed and carried, not just viewed on screen
Specifications
What we can produce
| Products | Cartons, sleeves, delivery boxes, labels and shippers |
|---|---|
| Constructions | Folding cartons, crash-lock bases, corrugated mailers, sleeves |
| Printing | Offset for volume, digital for short runs and seasonal versions |
| Sampling | Structural mock-up in the production board, tested loaded |
| Substrates | On request |
| Coatings | On request |
| Minimum order | On request |
| Lead time | On request |
Figures shown as “on request” are confirmed with your quote — they depend on the size, board and finishing of your specific job, and we would rather give you the real number than a range we have to walk back.
What we produce
What we produce for food brands
From a single takeaway carton to a full seasonal range, printed and die-cut to a dieline drawn for your portion size.
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Food cartons and sleeves
Burger, bakery, dessert and snack constructions, die-cut to your own dieline.
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Takeaway and delivery boxes
Corrugated and folding constructions built for a courier network or a rider bag.
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Bakery and confectionery boxes
Window boxes and sleeves for products that sell themselves through the pack.
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Mithai and seasonal gift boxes
Rigid and folding constructions for wholesale seasonal ranges.
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Sleeves, wraps and belly bands
Printed sleeves that carry the branding over a plain base pack.
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Food labels and seals
Ingredient panels, batch and date-coding areas, and tamper-evident seals.
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Shippers and outer cases
Corrugated outers for distribution and cash-and-carry.
How your job runs
The process, adapted to food
Same three stages. What changes is that the sample gets loaded rather than just looked at.
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01
Design
We start from the contact type and the journey, not the artwork. The dieline is drawn to the portion size and to the caliper of a board that will hold up when the product is hot or oily, and the ingredient, allergen and date panels are laid out at final size so they stay legible.
See detail of the Design stage -
02
Sampling
The mock-up is cut and creased in the production board and handed to you loaded — with the actual product in it wherever that is practical. A pack that looks right empty and fails full is the most common food-packaging mistake there is, and it costs nothing to catch at this stage.
See detail of the Sampling stage -
03
Production
Print, coating and die-cutting run against the approved sample, with in-process checks on the coated areas that do the work. Counts are verified at packing and the job is packed for the way it will be stored.
See detail of the Production stage
Quality control
Quality control and documentation
Where a certification is held it is published with its issuing body, number and expiry. Where one is not, we publish the controls instead of a badge we cannot evidence.
We hold no certification we can evidence on this page today. When we do, it will appear here with its issuing body, certificate number and expiry date — and not before.
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Contact type on the job sheet
Recorded at quotation and carried through to the press ticket.
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Sample proved loaded
The structural mock-up is tested with weight in it, not simply viewed.
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In-process coating checks
Coated and laminated areas are checked through the run, because that is what keeps grease out.
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Count verification
Batch counts are verified at packing and reconciled before dispatch.
Resources
Read before you brief us
Services
What this work runs on
Packaging
Box styles this industry uses
- Mono cartons Folding carton, tuck or glued — the standard retail secondary pack
- Window boxes Die-cut aperture with clear film patch — the product sells itself
- Corrugated mailers E or B flute, crash-lock or roll-end — built for transit
- Kraft boxes Uncoated kraft board — natural finish, one or two spot colours
Our work
Recent jobs off the press
Work samples are available on request
Much of what we produce is under a client confidentiality agreement, and we publish nothing without written permission. Tell us your industry and we will send relevant samples — or a physical sample pack.
Questions
Questions about food & beverage packaging
Anything not answered here, ask us directly — we would rather talk it through than have you guess.
“Food-grade” is not one thing — it depends on how the food touches the pack. We record the contact type on the job sheet (direct, indirect through a liner, or non-contact) and specify the board, coating and ink system against it. Tell us the product, whether it is served hot, and how it touches the pack, and we will confirm the specification with your quote.
The board and its coating, not the print. Grease-resistant or barrier-coated stock keeps oil out of the fibre; an uncoated board will darken and soften wherever the product touches it. It is a material decision made before the dieline, and the sample is the place to prove it.
Only if it was designed for one. A dine-in box and a delivery box are different constructions even with identical artwork — closure, board weight and how the pack stacks in a bag all change. We hand you the sample loaded so you can carry it before ten thousand customers do.
Yes. Interior print works well on sleeves, bakery boxes and gifting ranges. Where the food touches the printed surface, the ink system has to be specified for that contact — tell us and we will specify it rather than assume.
Yes — mithai, bakery and festive ranges are wholesale work we produce regularly. Seasonal ranges usually need short runs of several versions, which is a digital job rather than an offset one; we will tell you which is cheaper for your quantity.
Yes. The content is yours as the brand owner; what we control is that it stays legible at final print size and after folding. We proof those panels at real size on the production stock rather than at 200% on a laser print.
Related
Other industries we print for
Retail & e-commerce
Mailer boxes, branded shippers, tape, tags and inserts that make unboxing part of the product rather than an afterthought.
Learn more about Retail & e-commercePharmaceutical
Cartons, inserts, outserts and labels printed to your approved artwork, with the version control, sampling and QC that regulated packaging requires.
Learn more about PharmaceuticalSend us your artwork. We’ll quote today.
Quantity, size, substrate, colours and finishing — with those five details most jobs are quoted the same working day.
Or call 0327 2777728