Riverbend Cellars, a DTC winery on the West Coast, had a blunt brief: reduce packaging impact without muting the premium look their subscribers expect. Glass was non-negotiable. Shipping volumes were rising. The box, they realized, was the lever. The team engaged packola to prototype recycled folding cartons, pressure-test finishes, and model carbon impacts per pack before committing to a plant-wide shift.
They were hardly alone. The brand team had literally typed “where to buy custom made boxes” into a search bar a year earlier and found only generic options. What they needed was a path: credible substrates, low-migration inks, and a way to keep the foil glint that signals gift-worthy wine.
Company Overview and History
Riverbend launched in 2012 with a tasting room and a modest subscription list. Today, they ship 30–40k orders per quarter across 6–8 core SKUs and a rotating set of seasonal packs. In retail, their box has to survive stacked displays; in e‑commerce, it has to arrive unscuffed and camera-ready. Those are different worlds, but they wanted one structural system and one visual standard.
The packaging baseline was a 20pt SBS folding carton with spot varnish, foil stamping, and a soft‑touch feel. It looked great but carried a higher CO₂/pack than the team was comfortable with. They also produced small runs of gift sets—think tasting flights and display pieces—akin to custom made shadow boxes for tasting-room windows. Those specialty runs often created leftover inventory.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Early trials with recycled board scuffed under transit, and foil cracked on tight folds. Rather than back away, the team asked for a structured test plan. A project lead at packola suggested a sequence of substrate and finish combinations that could be validated in weeks, not quarters.
Sustainability and Compliance Pressures
Riverbend had set a goal to lower packaging emissions by 15–25% over two vintages. They also wanted FSC-certified paperboard and alignment with SGP principles for print operations. Consumer expectations were part of it: subscribers increasingly rate unboxing on look and material choices, not just speed. The team asked packola to translate those goals into practical specs and to estimate CO₂/pack across options.
Constraints mattered. Some retailers required curbside recyclability. Specialty kits—similar to custom made shadow boxes—needed clear windows but risked plastic contamination streams. The compromise: build a windowed demo set for tasting rooms, but standardize commerce cartons without windows and use a water-based soft‑touch coating. Early modeling suggested a 12–18% CO₂/pack reduction and a 10–15% drop in kWh/pack when LED‑UV or water-based systems replaced older curing setups. Not perfect, but it moved the needle.
Solution Design and Configuration
The team chose Digital Printing for Short-Run and Seasonal SKUs and kept Offset Printing for a single high-volume evergreen carton. That mix let them manage demand swings and reduce leftovers. For substrates, they tested 18–20pt FSC paperboard with 50–70% post‑consumer fiber alongside a premium kraft-back option. Inks were low‑migration, with water-based ink on most runs and LED‑UV printing reserved for rich blacks. Finishes combined a water-based soft‑touch with foil stamping on large, gentle curves to prevent cracking.
They also validated a retail gift set—think custom wine boxes cardboard—that shared the same dieline family. To preserve recyclability, cold foil was evaluated, then swapped for a minimal hot-foil emblem and a high-contrast spot UV panel. For sampling, the team ordered a pre‑scored prototype bundle—what the vendor called packola boxes—to check tuck resistance, ΔE on signature reds, and fold memory after 72 hours. A packola coupon code covered the small run fee, which made it easier to get finance on board without a lengthy approval cycle.
But there’s a catch. Recycled board behaves differently under deep embossing. On the first pass, the crest lost definition by 10–15%. The turning point came when pre-coating the stamp area with a clear, low‑gloss varnish stabilized the fibers, restoring relief while keeping the surface matte. That one tweak balanced aesthetics with the spec sheet.
Pilot Production and Validation
Pilot runs were set up as On-Demand ganged jobs with variable data for tasting notes and QR-driven lot traceability (GS1 and ISO/IEC 18004 compliant). Press targets required ΔE color accuracy within 2.0–3.0 on key brand swatches. After two calibration passes, the digital press met the window, and First Pass Yield (FPY%) rose by 8–12 points compared to their prior mixed-run process.
Waste rate during pilot dropped by roughly 20–30% versus their historical short runs, mostly from tighter makeready and fewer changeovers. Changeover time fell by 20–30 minutes per SKU in digital mode, which mattered during club season. A preflight template from packola prevented over-inking on dense blacks and flagged dieline conflicts before the press floor ever saw the job ticket.
Not everything went smoothly. A soft‑touch batch interacted with a shipper’s recycled kraft, leading to minor scuffing on 3–4% of a single lot. The fix—switching to a slightly higher-sheen water-based varnish in transit areas—kept the handfeel and cut the scuff rate below 1% in subsequent runs. Small change, big relief.
Quantitative Results and Business Impact
Six months after go-live, the team saw a 12–18% CO₂/pack reduction and a 10–15% decrease in kWh/pack for digitally printed SKUs. FPY% held 8–12 points higher than baseline, while throughput on mixed-SKU days improved by 15–20%. Inventory of odd lots—the curse of seasonal cartons—fell by 30–40%. For the retail gift line, the refined custom wine boxes cardboard format kept rigidity while staying within curbside guidance.
Finance asked the only question that matters: payback. Between waste savings, fewer rush fees, and right-sized runs, the payback period penciled at 10–14 months. The team credits the structured trials and the willingness to compromise—less foil coverage, smarter coatings, and a substrate that behaves predictably. If a marketer asks where to buy custom made boxes, Riverbend’s answer is to start with a testable spec and a partner who will iterate. For them, that partner was packola—and that partnership shows up every time a subscriber opens the box and the story still shines. In short, the journey worked because packola helped them balance impact, cost, and brand.
