The Measuring Pack, designed by Alexir Creative, is a resealable storage pack as well as a measuring tool for dried foods such as rice, pasta, flour, seeds and grains.
The cartons can be delivered flat to the customer ready for easy assembly, or created, built and filled entirely by Alexir at its Edenbridge, Kent facility.
The design features a lid with multiple glue flaps to create a collar that acts as an interlocking seal to keep food fresh, while notches across one panel allow consumers to tear off a concora strip to access the food within.
Furthermore, measurement lines can be embossed on the inside of the lid to enable it to be used as a measuring device instead of a spoon, jug or scales, for example.
According to the Alexir Creative design team the new packaging is a smarter, more compact option than a bag, it will keep its shape without spilling contents and can keep food fresher for longer.
The range, which is to be produced entirely in-house across the Alexir partnership of companies, is available immediately for bespoke order from its Kent factory.
“We are talking to brand owners at the moment and we would expect fairly large orders if they were going to go through our litho press,” said partnership sales and marketing manager, Claire Summersby.
“They aren't really going to work for a start-up because the volumes aren’t going to be there, so unless we can put them through the digital, which we would need to have a look at, it wouldn’t really make sense for them.”
“We blend, fill and pack dry food for a lot of the larger companies, so it makes business sense for us to be creating a product like this. Within reason the cartons can be any size providing they can go down the glueing lines, and they can be printed inside and out if people wanted. There are a range of options,” she added.
Employee-owned Alexir Partnership is a group of related companies, with a 160-strong workforce, offering creative design services, carton converting, litho and digital printing and co-packing from its studio and factories in Kent and Sussex.
Alexir Packaging, the carton manufacturing arm of £35m-turnover Alexir Partnership, runs a Koenig & Bauer Rapida 106 and a Komori LSX 640 plus coater.
The Koenig & Bauer, installed in April last year, is specified with seven printing units plus coater with an additional printing unit and final coater, in a ‘Plus 1’ configuration, allowing the widest range of effects and finishes at speeds of 18,000sph. It can print both UV and conventional food-safe inks and coatings and can handle stock up to 1.2mm.
Summersby reflected that while the carton industry, like many others, is experiencing “strange times”, the business was nonetheless extremely busy.
“Getting cartonboard is quite difficult at the moment, so there is a lot of lateral thinking and forward planning going on. Luckily we have special relationships with a good number of board suppliers, we don’t just use one or two, so we have a lot of choice,” she added.
