You may be surprised to hear that Custom Packaging existed in the Stone Age. It is not a modern invention as speculated by anthropologists and archeologists. The early times the families went out to look for food and the children were taught to consume food where it was found. The families were pretty much self-sufficient in using what nature offered them. The plant kingdom and the animal kingdom were the only two powerful resources that provided what consumed and stored for later use. When the containers were needed gourds, shells, leaves and other shallow objects formed by nature were used provided by nature to package goods that they used.
Later on, humans came out of caves and learned to farm and rearing live stocks. The fabrics were obtained from furs and wool on an animal skin. The arts and crafts were invented and tools were made that boosted trade. Soon the fabrics were weaved into garments and into packages to wrap around things and thus the first form of fabricated packaging was invented.
The Dawn of Civilizations
After the discovery of the weaving processes the grasses and later on reeds were made into baskets to store food surpluses. This further boosted trade. Soon the first civilizations started to appear and empires were formed. The trade routes were established between these civilizations and economies started to emerge as the trade flourished. In all these phenomena packaging played a central role.
The Stone Age
The Stone Age was the earliest times where packaging probably became mainstream in civilizations. People started to make tools and weapons made of stone. The hunting and tribal systems were organizing themselves. The men as they are stronger than women took on the task of hunting animals in the wild. The animals that were hunted, their skins and bones with cavities were good material for packaging. Women looked after children and the dwelling places as men were busy in the jungle.
The Metal ages
The age marked by histories still had to arrive that embarked on the beginning of metals. It is called the iron age or the metal ages when different sorts of metals were discovered. In this time ores were discovered. The ores are metallic residual that is found in rocks and people started to mine. The ores were extracted from rocks and other geological formations that were accessible near the cities where the rocks and soil were transported to be removed and reveal the ores. The ore is a raw form of metal. The blacksmith of that time heated the ores at high temperatures and extracted metals that were formed into various shapes.
Aside from forming them into tools and weapons, many of these things were used to confine and contain things and can be considered as forms of packaging. This packaging was very far away from the paper packaging that exists now such as the custom packaging boxes of today.
The History of Paper Packaging
The paper packaging is not something very new. It is a very ancient form of flexible packaging. The treated sheets of mulberry bark are known to be used in China to wrap around food in 2 B.C.
Paper packaging techniques were probably exported by China and it is found in the Middle East after 1500 years. It spread to Europe later on and got rooted in the U.K. in 1310. This technique came to Pennsylvania in 1690.
It is worth mentioning here that the paper created with this ancient technique was very different from the paper used for packaging these days. Early paper was made with flax fiber and then old linen rags as its raw material. In 1867 the first paper was made from wood pulp that still exists with its overwhelming usefulness and popularity.
It was in 1844 that the first commercial paper bags were made in England. Francis Whole was the American inventor who made the first machine that could manufacture paper bags and was able to automate the bag making process 1852.
In-line printed paper bags making machinery was invented in 1905. The cheaper glued paper sack replaced the cotton flour sack. The advancements in the stitching technology for tougher multi-walled sack replaced sacks made of clothes in 1925.
In 1817, the first cardboard box was invented in England that could be used commercially two hundred years after the invention of cardboard in China.
The corrugated boxes with added strength for stacking and transport were invented in the 1850s and it was not until 1900 the corrugated boxes replaced the wooden boxes for shipping products for trade because of their strength, durability, flexibility, and light-weightiness.
A Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker Robert Gair was the one who accidentally invented the automatically made cartoon in the 1970s that created a revolution in the packaging industry. He was executing an order to print seed bags and suddenly realize that if he creases and cuts the paper in one operation that will make the process simpler and more advantageous. Robert was not an Industrial Engineer but he laid the foundation of one of the most import discoveries in modern manufacturing technology.
The paperboard and paper packaging enjoyed popularity throughout the twentieth century and many discoveries were made in the packaging that is bought and sold in bulk such as Kraft Boxes wholesale that are known for their durability strength, flexibility and aesthetic looks to rise in popularity for fashion packaging or packaging expensive products such as gifts.
The popularity of paper packaging had a significant hit in the 1970s and 1980s when plastic packaging started to replace it. But nowadays due to environmental concern with plastic packaging the trend of paper packaging is again on the rise. They further developed this technology and formed packaging material is the metal ages after which the modern era of packaging came by where the value of paper packaging superseded all other forms of materials.