Custom Printed Pizza Box Liners

Sizing Liners to Your Pizza Boxes

A liner should cover the inner base of the box without riding up the sides. Measure the inside of the box base, then take off 3 to 5 mm on each side so the liner drops in flat. For round pizzas in square boxes, many shops still choose a square liner, as it fills the corners and catches drips from toppings that slide. A round liner looks neater in an octagonal or round box, and it leaves the corners free for dips or a folded napkin.

If you use several box sizes, from a small personal pizza up to a large sharing size, you will need a liner for each. We can print the same design on all three at once, scaled to fit, and list them together on one custom quote. Round boxes need a circular liner, which we cut for our round pizza boxes with round liners.

Printing a Logo on a Greaseproof Liner

Liners are printed in one or two colours, which keeps them affordable and the design crisp. A repeating logo pattern is popular because it looks good whichever way the liner is dropped into the box. Some shops print a short message, a social handle or a menu reminder, so the customer sees it again when the last slice is lifted.

Keep artwork simple and avoid large solid areas of ink, as the paper is thin and heavy coverage can make it curl. Line drawings, logos and short text read best, and a single dark colour such as black, red or green shows clearly on the off-white paper. Your free design proof shows the pattern at full size, so you can see how it will look under a pizza.

Who Uses Liners and Why

Independent pizzerias use liners to keep branded boxes looking fresh for delivery. Takeaways with a printed box design often add them because the printed outside of the box is the part on show at the customer's door, and an oil stain coming through it looks careless. Street food traders who serve pizza at markets use liners on open trays and boards, where a printed sheet doubles as a plate.

Restaurants that sell frozen or take-and-bake pizzas also use liners, as they keep the base from sticking to the box while it sits in a freezer. Caterers serving pizza at events use them on platters for the same reason.

Dessert pizza and calzone sellers find liners useful too. Sweet toppings such as chocolate spread or caramel are sticky rather than oily, and a liner stops them gluing the base to the card. Calzones release a lot of steam from their folded edges, so a liner beneath them keeps the box from going soft at the corners.

Delivery platforms add another reason. Customers rate the whole order, including how it looked on arrival, and a clean box with a branded liner inside makes a better first impression than a greasy carton. For a small cost per pizza, it is one of the easiest ways to lift how your food arrives. Sides served with the pizza use the smaller fries paper liners for sides.

Liners, Separators and Pads Compared

Pizzerias sometimes confuse liners with separators. A liner goes under the pizza and deals with oil and steam from below. A separator, often a small plastic or card tripod, sits in the middle of the pizza and holds the lid up so cheese and toppings do not stick to the underside of the box. They solve different problems, and many delivery kitchens use both on their larger pizzas.

A corrugated pad sits somewhere between the two. It does the job of a liner by catching drips, but because it has a little height it also raises the crust off the base, letting steam escape around the edges. Pads cost a little more than paper sheets but can make a noticeable difference to how crisp a pizza is after a long drive.

If you are not sure which to choose, start with a printed greaseproof liner in your most popular size and see how the boxes look at the end of a busy night. If the bases are still softening, a card liner or pad is the next step. The difference between paper and card is explained in our card and paper grades explained guide.

Measure the Inside of the Box Base

Liners are cut to the inside of the box base, not the outside of the box, so open a box, measure the base inside the walls and take 5 mm off each side so the liner drops in without curling up the walls. Do that for every box size you use, usually 10, 12 and 14 inch, because one design scales to each size in the same order. Choose greaseproof paper for a liner that catches oil at low cost, or card for a liner that also stiffens the base under a heavy pizza. Decide on print: a single-colour logo in the centre is seen when the lid opens, a repeat pattern shows under every slice. Artwork is a vector logo or a tile, and the free proof shows it on each liner size. A custom quote comes by email within one working day with liners from £0.25 and minimums per job, and liners are produced in 4 to 7 working days after approval with free tracked UK mainland delivery. If you are unsure which dimension to send, our measuring a box base for a liner page shows where to put the rule.