The Packaging Engineering Blog

Pallets rarely fail because the film was too thin — they fail because the wrap let go, and here is the mechanism and the bill.

Containment force is what holds a pallet together: how it is measured, why micron does not predict it, and what actually does.

Warm loads sealed in solid film sweat. Here is the physics behind it, the damage it does, and how to stop the water forming.

Condensation damage never shows up on the film invoice. It shows up in rust, lifted labels, soft cartons and pallets refused at goods-in.

Solid film seals heat and moisture against the load. Here is how to tell when a perforated wrap is the cheaper answer.

There is no catalogue figure. What sets the perforation is the heat, the moisture and the respiration your load carries into the wrap.

Roll price hides the real number. How to work out what one secured pallet costs you in film, labour, damage and rewraps.

Pre-stretch turns one metre off the roll into more than two on the load. Where the yield comes from, and where it stops paying.

The UK Plastic Packaging Tax is charged by weight. What that means for your pallet wrap, and what to ask your supplier.

Most plastic reductions fail because the load starts arriving damaged. How to remove material and keep the pallet standing.

Where paper honeycomb genuinely replaces bubble wrap, where it does not, and what changes at the packing bench when you switch.

Void fill, cushioning and wrapping are three different jobs. How crinkle paper, honeycomb and paper bubble differ, and which one your pack needs.

A shrink tunnel needs heat, warm-up and floor space. Cold stretch-wrap automation needs none of them. What changes, and what to check first.

Two kilowatts against fifteen, and half the film. The arithmetic behind replacing heat-shrink with cold stretch wrapping, done honestly.

Cartons that leave the blast freezer fused into one block were sealed in solid film. Here is the mechanism, and the fix.

Sealed in solid film, a cold-chain pallet sweats, fuses into a block and gets refused at goods-in. One cause sits behind all three.

Fresh produce keeps breathing after harvest. Seal that under a solid wrap and the pallet arrives hot, wet and refused.

Fruit fly, wet cartons and paperwork are three different failures. Only one of them is decided by your pallet wrap.

Warm cans and bottles wrapped in solid film arrive wet. Why it happens on a filling line, and how to stop it.

Which layer of your packaging actually touches food, what matters for paper and for film, and the checks that get missed.

Heavy, sharp and top-heavy pallets fail in predictable places. Where the wrap gives way first, and what actually holds the load.

Steel, timber, blocks and profiles cut through ordinary wrap. What reinforced film does on sharp, dense loads — and what it does not do.

Film use in a 3PL hides behind rolls a month. How to find it, measure it per pallet, and cut it without losing containment.

The same pallet wrapped three ways on three shifts. Why the wrap drifts, what the variance costs, and how to hold a standard.

Micron says what you paid for, not how the wrap holds. How to read a stretch film spec and what to specify instead.

A plain guide to stretch, pre-stretch, cling and puncture resistance: what each does on a pallet, and how to compare quotes.

Recyclable, recycled content, kerbside collected and widely recycled are four different claims. What each one commits you to, and how to check it.

FSC is not a food-contact certificate. The documents to ask a supplier for, and the contact conditions that decide the answer.

Fragile goods break for three reasons in transit. What paper packaging can be engineered to stop, and where it cannot replace plastic.

Void fill has to protect the order, clear the pack bench fast and look right on opening. How to run paper fill in fulfilment.

Most of what packaging costs never appears on the packaging invoice. Six places the money hides, and how to cut each one.

A finance director will not sign off on “about half”. How to measure, trial and present a packaging change that holds up.