The company won the Volume Markets category of the ProCarton/ECMA Awards last week, in Sorrento, Italy.
Egg packing system
Helge Schultze, managing director, Eggbox told FoodProductionDaily the carton is sold in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Russia, UK but is looking for partners.
“We are planning to find partners abroad in South America and Australia so they can build the eggbox in their own countries in partnership with a licensing agreement with us,” he said.
“The design came about from an inventor who worked in the egg industry but not boxes. It took him quite a while to get the patent and he came to us about five years ago to ask if we wanted to bring it to market."
In Austria, Eggbox supplies Hofer, a member of the ALDI Süd Group, with the Eggbox egg packing system.
Cartonic Packaging Group
The carton producer is Cartonic Packaging Group and the cartonboard manufacturer is Careo and Papierfabrik Adolf Jass.
“We had to buy and build our own machinery and opened a production site in Wittenburg, Germany,” added Schultze.
“We believe this is the first innovation in the egg business since 1930. That’s why we had to do it.
“The factory opened with two production lines and we moved to a new site in 2010. We are now running nine production lines with plans to expand further.”
The judges at the awards agreed the eggbox ‘offered better protection to a fragile product than many of the alternatives’.
Packs for 12 eggs
The carton can be made into several different configurations including packs for 12 eggs in which the carton is perforated in the middle so it can be split into two packs of six.
Schultze said the large printable outer surface allows the customer, Hofer, to provide a lot of relevant information for the end consumer on the carton (nutrition tables, quality seal, origin ID).
The box is manufactured entirely from FSC certified recycled materials. This was key for Hofer to switch from conventional egg packaging to the eggbox system.