Coated Cardboard, Explained
Coated cardboard — also known as coated corrugated — is useful for products that need an extra layer of protection. In the past, wax coated cardboard was the most popular choice for meat, poultry, and vegetable packaging, but other specialty coatings have recently come to market. These coatings provide superior protection for certain products, and are becoming more and more popular in the corrugated packaging industry. But, what are these coatings and why are they important, exactly? Here, we break down the uses and benefits of these specialty coatings.
Coated Cardboard Applications
Produce
Applying a coating to your produce packaging protects against moisture, ensuring your produce arrives fresh and ready for consumption, every time. This kind of coating helps protect against defective produce, which positively impacts your bottom line.
Meat and Poultry
Coatings protect against meat release for proteins, which can keep your product fresher for longer. As aforementioned, these coatings are imperative for protecting against defective product, which reduces the risk of costly returns.
Metal Parts
Food is not the only type of product that can benefit from coated cardboard. Metal parts will often get a specialty coating to protect against grease contamination. This ensures your products arrive safely without causing an unnecessary mess.
Other Uses
As specialty coatings are great at protecting against abrasion, they’re often used for a variety of applications. Using a specialty coating on the outside of your corrugated packaging can ensure your graphics and important text remains legible, even after a long transportation journey.
Types of Corrugated Coatings
At Tyoga Container, we partner with Spectra-Kote to bring the highest quality corrugated coatings to our customers’ packaging. For more than 60 years the company has provided the best coatings on the market, which makes them a great partner for our operation.
All Spectra-Kote coatings are repulpable/recyclable, making them a sustainable choice for your coated packaging needs. Below, we go over the types of coatings they provide and how they help our customers get the best results.
Perishable Coatings
Spectra-Kote’s perishable coatings include the Spectra-Guard 3000, 3003, 763-BAF, 3005, and White-Kote 121 varieties. They are perfect for everything from light duty water and grease resistance to water-resistant paper treatment, and even wax dipping.
Bakery Coatings
The bakery coatings also contain the Spectra-Guard 3003 product, but expand to 763-C3, White-Kote 107 PROD-CSA, White-Kote 123-C, and 3006 varieties. These provide high performance oil and grease resistance, perfect for a variety of baked goods.
Food Service Coatings
Spectra-Kote’s food service coatings are Spectra-Guard 763-A, 3003, 3012, 3010A, and 3007-BK varieties. Like the bakery coatings, the food service products revolve around oil and grease resistance. Where they differ, however, is they also focus on release properties to help foods stay fresher for longer.
Industrial Coatings
The industrial coatings are MAR-LESS 37-RH, Spectra-Guard 3004, 763-AVCI, FR-KOTE, HSL, HS, NS-2, and PC-2 varieties. These coatings vary in their abilities, but typically focus on anti-abrasion, water resistance, grease resistance, fire retardancy, anti-dust, and heat sealability.
Printing Varnishes
With 763-A, Versacoate, and Extender options, these coatings provide gloss, color extender, and oil and grease resistance.
Should You Use Coated Cardboard?
While it’s not a requirement to use coatings on your corrugated packaging, it can certainly help your bottom line. Not only will you have less defective product, but your branding is more likely to stay intact, sharp, and legible along the transportation journey. If you’re unsure whether you should use a coating, reach out to our team of experts for their opinion.
Trust Tyoga Container for Your Coated Packaging Needs
For more than 50 years, we’ve been solving the most challenging packaging needs for customers across the U.S. We’re well-versed in creating coated cardboard packaging for a variety of industries, and we’re excited to do the same for you.
Our facilities employ state-of-the-art equipment and an extremely experienced team, allowing us to go beyond the basics and quickly meet your needs. Our dedicated team works hard to understand your challenges and match you with stock options or create a custom corrugated solution to streamline your operation. Our fast and flexible factories are optimized for fast SKU changes and short lead times. Whether you’re looking for a small or large run, we’re the partner for you.
Let’s Create the Optimal Packaging for You
Are you ready to explore our packaging options? Reach out to our team today.
