Buying smarter / 6 MIN READ

Why the cheapest packaging price can cost your factory more

Most food and drink factories buy packaging on price. The buyer gets a target, finds the lowest quote and moves on. Then the operations team lives with whatever turns up. When it's thinner, shorter or weaker than it should be, they quietly use more of it.

By KP Trading & Distribution · 6 minute read

Why the cheapest packaging price can cost your factory more, KP Trading and Distribution. Photo is illustrative. — Price per pack and cost per use · Photo is illustrative

Nobody is doing anything wrong. The buyer is measured on price per pack. The line is measured on output. The gap between the two is where the money goes, and in most factories nobody is paid to look at it.

We know that gap well. KP started inside a UK food factory, living with these problems every day. Below are three things we've found on real sites, what they cost, and how you can check your own.

Price per pack is not cost per use

A pallet edge, a roll of wrap or a box matters for one reason. It has to get a pallet out of the door safely. What that costs you is the cost per use. Price per pack is just the number on the invoice.

The two only match when the product does exactly what it says. Here's what happens when it doesn't.

How an 11p pallet edge ended up costing £1.76 a pallet

One site was buying pallet edges at 11p each. Their buyer had done a good job. Nobody could beat the price.

On the floor it was a different story. The pallets stood 1400mm high and the edges were 1.1m, so the team cut extra pieces and joined them on. The edges weren't strong enough on their own either, so they doubled up. That's four edges on every corner and 16 on every pallet.

At 11p each, that's £1.76 a pallet before anyone counts the minutes spent cutting and fitting. The buyer never saw the cutting. Operations never saw the invoice.

One 1450mm edge of the right strength does each corner in one go. At an illustrative 17p an edge, four of them come to 68p a pallet. The edge costs more. The pallet costs £1.08 less, and the load is held properly. Across 1,000 pallets that's £1,080, before you add back the labour.

Not sure what your own pallets cost? We'll check them with you on site.

How to tell if your pallet wrap is thinner than the label says

Another site was buying hand wrap sold as 17 micron and 300 metres, at a good price.

We put a micrometer and a set of scales on a roll. It measured 14 micron. The roll weighed 1,746g on a 350g core and was 500mm wide, and working back from the weight of the film, it held about 216 metres. Not 300.

If a pallet takes 50 metres of film, a 300 metre roll should wrap six pallets. This one wrapped four. You pay for six pallets' worth of film and get enough for four.

Would anyone on the floor notice? Almost never. A roll looks like a roll until it runs out early. Someone reaches for the next one, and the cost per pallet climbs while the price per roll still looks fine.

You can check this yourself. Weigh a full roll, weigh the empty core, and compare the weight of the film with what your supplier says a roll of that length and thickness should weigh. If the numbers don't add up, the roll isn't what you paid for.

Why a box that doesn't match its spec sheet costs you twice

Boxes come with a spec sheet. Everyone trusts it, and why wouldn't they? It's what you're paying for.

We sent a customer's boxes off for a soak test and had the construction, board weight and spec checked line by line against that sheet. Every line came back weaker than it said.

That costs you in two ways. First, you're paying for a stronger box than the one on your line. Say the box on the sheet is worth 25p and the one you actually got sells at 21p. That's 4p on every box, or £4,000 on 100,000 boxes a year.

Second, it costs you in the chiller. The Food Standards Agency is clear that chilled food has to be kept at 8°C or below by law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Corrugated board takes on moisture, and DS Smith, one of the UK's biggest box makers, says the fibres swell and weaken at high humidity. A box that starts out weaker than its spec has less strength to lose. It's the one that leans, crushes and comes back, and damaged stock that reaches a retailer can come back to you as a cost.

Why nobody spots it

None of this is about bad people. It's how the work is split, and once you see it you can't unsee it. The buyer sees the price. Operations sees the product. QA sees the paperwork when the auditor arrives. Nobody sits in the middle comparing all three.

Add a long list of suppliers, invoices and deliveries, and nobody has the time even if they wanted to.

What we do differently

We start on your factory floor, not with a price list. We talk to your operations team, look at your machines and how each product is used, and test what you buy against its spec. Then we recommend what you actually need and agree it with your buyer.

Once a spec is agreed, we lock it, and we never swap a product without your approval. There are several manufacturers behind every product we supply, so one of them letting us down doesn't stop your line. You get one account, one order, one delivery and one invoice.

Every client also gets their own login when they join. Inside is every spec sheet, certificate and declaration of compliance for what they buy from us. When the auditor turns up, your QA team logs in and downloads what they need.

How to check your own site this week

Pick the three products your line gets through fastest. For most food factories that's pallet wrap, pallet edges and boxes.

Ask the people who use them, not the people who buy them, whether they ever double up, cut, rewrap or bin product that should have been fine. Then weigh a roll of wrap, measure your edges against your pallet height, and pull the spec sheet for your main box.

If anything doesn't line up, work out the cost per pallet, not the cost per pack. That's usually where the surprise is.

Frequently asked questions

Is thinner pallet wrap always worse?

No. A good pre-stretched film at 5 micron can hold a load well, and machine film often runs at 6 or 9 micron. The problem is paying for one thing and getting another. What matters is that the roll matches its label and suits your machine or your team.

What is a box soak test?

We send box samples to be tested wet and have the board and construction checked against the spec sheet. It tells you whether the box you're getting is the box you're paying for.

What does a site check cost?

Nothing. We'll walk your site with your operations team, usually in about 30 minutes, and send you a written report on what we found. There's no contract.

Do we have to move everything across?

No. Most sites start with a 30 day trial on five products, often layer pads, pallet edges, pallet wrap or gloves, and move more lines across when they're ready.

Book a free site check

Send us three things: your pallet height, the edges, wrap and boxes you use, and what you pay for each. We'll spend 30 minutes on your floor with your operations team, work out the real cost per pallet, and show you what it should be. You get a written report. If a box or a roll needs testing, we'll arrange it.

Email sales@kptrading.uk or call 020 4576 5500.