FAQs

All sacks require a curing period, usually 5 days after manufacture, to dry out and strengthen before they can be used. This is to allow the glue used in their construction to dry properly. Without this curing period the sacks will not perform. Even when using some of the best raw material in the world, it must not be forgotten that we are dealing with paper. EAPI will help determine the ideal sack size for the density of cement being packed and will make good any broken sacks beyond 0.2% of the sacks supplied.

This usually depends on the distance that the sacks have to travel to market and the handling process along the way. Both tea and cement sacks can be supplied in 2, 3 or 4-ply. For cement we would recommend either 3 or 4-ply sacks using 70gsm sack kraft. 2-ply cement sacks only work when palletised and not handled by hand. We would recommend the same 3 or 4-ply combination for tea sacks although certain Mombasa traders are able to use 2-ply sacks.

Paper is the most enduring and environmentally friendly packaging material in existence today. It is biodegradable and has existed for centuries. Compared to WPP, paper cement sacks lead to less dust and spillage. Dust can lead to extra health & safety costs. Lost cement through spillage can be very costly indeed.

Aluminium foil lamininate– low density polyethylene: 70 gsm Kraft / 15 PE / 19 gsm Aluminium foil -104 gsm. Metallised foil Laminate:

We take for granted that suppliers will use the correct grammage of paper in line with those specifications previously determined or agreed with the customer but unfortunately, our audits have frequently proved that inferior quality or lower grammage papers are used with damaging effects on the goods being packed. If you consider that the corrugated carton in terms of cost represents anywhere between 2 and 8% of the value of most packed goods, then the use of inferior quality packaging is always going to cost you, the customer, more in the end.

After deciding the appropriate design and paper grammage for a particular carton, it is still no guarantee that you will get the strength you need.Although there may be nothing wrong with the quality of paper used, the paper goes through a conversion process that involves corrugation, lamination, printing, slotting, cutting, gluing and stitching. If the paper used in the converting process is not properly laminated or printed or glued, you may still get a carton with inferior strength characteristics.

For horticultural and floriculture customers who export their fresh produce and flowers using airfreight the weight of the carton plays a major role in the overall cost of airfreight. At EAPI we know how to get the maximum strength using the least amount of paper for a particular carton design.

In the process of determining carton strength requirements, at EAPI we will recommend the range of compression strength that can be expected for a particular design and keep records of every batch of packaging made for the customer so that subsequent recalls can be verified in terms of their history of production right down to the paper that was used to produce the carton. As the paper grammage used for a particular carton is a direct determinant of cost and hence price, quality is compromised when only considering price. The lower the price the less paper that is used to make up the carton impacting directly on the integrity of construction. Make sure that all commercial proposals have considered the strength requirements and that prices are compared against paper grammage used.In other words compare apples with apples!!