Thermoforming rewards designs that respect how a heated sheet stretches. These rules prevent most tooling rework and most thickness complaints.
Use it as a working checklist when you write your next enquiry.
This category covers a family of products rather than a single item. In practice a buyer defines thermoformed egg trays and cartons by three things: the base resin, the format or dimension, and the performance or certification level it has to meet. Typical options in this category include 6, 10, 12 and 18 cell formats; recloseable lid options; stackable and nestable designs. Materials most often specified are Polypropylene, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Polystyrene, Recycled PET, and the choice between them changes stiffness, temperature resistance, chemical behaviour and price.
In the retail and merchandising sector the decision is usually driven by shelf presentation and print quality, with stack strength as a secondary requirement. Typical end uses include shelf trays, counter displays, dump bins.
The table below summarises the values that usually decide the material choice.
| Material | Density | Tensile strength | Service temperature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polyethylene Terephthalate | 1.35-1.40 g/cm³ | 50-70 MPa | -40°C to 70°C |
| Recycled PET | 1.35-1.40 g/cm³ | 45-65 MPa | -40°C to 70°C |
| Polystyrene | 1.04-1.06 g/cm³ | 30-50 MPa | -20°C to 70°C |
Polystyrene is frequently the default selection here: HIPS is the default thermoforming sheet for food packaging and appliance liners.
Thermoforming rewards designs that respect how the sheet stretches. These rules prevent most tooling rework.
Send these rules to your designer together with the sheet gauge and the target cycle time; most tooling modifications come from ignoring draft and corner radii.
Beyond the base resin, most suppliers offer UV stabilised, food contact, flame retardant, anti-static and recycled content versions of the same product. Ask which additive package is included, because it is often the difference between a part that lasts three years and one that lasts ten.
Processing method drives both cost and performance, so it should be fixed early in the design.
Secondary operations such as printing, welding, machining and assembly are often cheaper to do in the same factory, and they reduce the risk of mismatch between components.
Work through these points in order and most specification mistakes disappear.
Send this list to your supplier with the drawing and you will receive comparable quotations from every factory you contact.
We can provide ISO 9001 quality system documentation, material certificates, RoHS and REACH statements, and where applicable food contact, flame retardancy or drinking water approvals. Tell us your target market and we will match the document set.
A new tool typically takes 25 to 45 days depending on cavity count and complexity, followed by T1 samples within one week. Existing tools can usually start production within 10 to 15 days of order confirmation.
For standard sizes and colours the minimum is usually one pallet or one production run; for custom tooling the economic minimum depends on the tooling cost amortised over the expected volume. Send us your annual volume and we will calculate the break even point.
Standard packing is export cartons on fumigation-free pallets, with custom labelling, barcode and retail packing available. We also handle consolidated containers and door to door delivery.
Yes. {mat1} is one of our regular materials for this item, and we can supply virgin, modified and certified grades with full traceability. Material certificates and test reports are issued per batch.
Our team supplies thermoformed egg trays and cartons to retail and merchandising customers worldwide, with samples, material certificates and full inspection reports available before mass production.
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