Custom Prawn Boxes

Coatings and Board for Custom Prawn Boxes

We usually build frozen prawn cartons from folding boxboard with a moisture-resistant coating suited to cold storage. For heavier catering packs, a coated corrugated board gives extra stacking strength in a cold store. The right specification depends on whether the box will be frozen, chilled or used hot, and on whether the prawns touch the board directly or sit in a bag.

Food-contact grade board is available on request for packs where the seafood touches the carton. In most retail packs the prawns are bagged or trayed first, which simplifies things. We will confirm the board and coating that suit your process in the custom quote.

If boxes go into a blast freezer, mention it. Very low temperatures and rapid freezing put more stress on glue seams, and we can choose an adhesive and closure style that copes.

What to Print on a Seafood Carton

Shoppers scan frozen cabinets quickly, so the front needs to say three things at a glance: what the product is, its size grade and whether it is raw or cooked. Prawn sizes are often shown as a count per kilogram or as a grade name, and a clear panel for that saves confusion. A strong image or illustration of the cooked dish helps too.

The back and sides carry the details: species and catch or farming area, ingredients, allergen warning for crustaceans, storage instructions, defrosting and cooking guidance, and a panel for batch code and dates. Leave that panel uncoated or matt if you stamp or label dates, so ink takes properly.

Seafood brands often use blues, whites and deep oranges for that fresh, coastal feel, but a darker, more premium palette works well for king prawns and gift ranges sold through delis and farm shops.

Cooking guidance is worth getting right, since many shoppers are unsure whether to thaw prawns first. Upload the artwork through the free proof request and we will mark the allergen and date panels for you.

Sizing Around Your Packs

Size the carton to the bagged or trayed product, not the loose prawns. Freeze a typical pack, measure it at its widest, and allow a few millimetres all round. Frozen bags are not perfectly flat, so a little extra depth stops the carton bulging. For sleeves, measure the sealed tray including its flange.

Common retail weights are small 200 to 250 g packs, mid-size family packs and larger bags for keen cooks. Catering packs are bigger again. If you sell several weights, we can keep the same front design and simply scale the carton, so the range looks unified in the cabinet.

Think about cabinet facings too. Frozen cabinets are deep but not tall, so a carton that stands upright with its front panel facing out often merchandises better than a flat box that only shows its lid. If your retail buyer has a planogram, ask for the shelf height and depth before we fix the size. Our guide to measuring products for a carton explains the allowances for soft packs.

Who Orders Prawn Boxes

Fishmongers selling frozen packs alongside their fresh counter use them to turn a plain bag into a branded product. Seafood processors and importers use printed cartons for supermarket and wholesale lines. Restaurants and takeaways order lidded boxes for prawn dishes, and online seafood boxes use printed cartons inside insulated shipping packs.

Smaller brands starting out often begin with a generic design that works across several seafood lines, then move to product-specific cartons once they know which packs sell best.

Online sellers have their own needs. Their cartons go into an insulated liner with ice packs, so a slim, rigid pack that stacks neatly makes better use of the cool box and keeps the prawns frozen for longer in transit.

Freeze a Pack, Then Measure It

A frozen bag of prawns is not the shape it was when it was sealed, so the measurement we need is taken after freezing: bag a typical 250 g pack, freeze it as you normally would, and measure it at its widest and deepest points. Add a few millimetres all round and a little extra depth so the carton never bulges. Tell us whether the box is frozen, chilled or used hot, if it goes through a blast freezer, and whether the prawns are bagged, trayed or loose, since each changes the coating and board.

Send the pack weights you sell, the format and the quantities per weight, and a custom quote comes back by email within one working day, with cartons from £0.25 and low minimums quoted per job. The free proof shows the artwork, the allergen panel and an uncoated date panel on the dieline. Production takes 4–7 working days after approval and the flat cartons arrive by free tracked delivery to UK mainland addresses in 2–3 working days. Misprinted or damaged deliveries reported within 10 days are reprinted or refunded. Fishmongers who also sell battered fish usually order fish and chip boxes in the same print alongside.