Standard export packaging

By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · published 8 September 2026.

Three formats, one master carton, and a code printed on every one of them that ties it back to the batch it came from. What follows is what we measure and print, not what the category generally does — the dimensions on this page were taken off our own boxes.

The three formats

The trade converges on three ways to fill a master carton, and a competitor sets them out plainly enough to quote: "1. Full packaging (including inner plastic, inner box, and master box)", "2. 1 kg bulk (including inner plastic, and master box)", and "3. Bulk (include inner plastic and master box)" (littlebriquette.com, 17 January 2024). Ours map onto that with one addition the convention has no slot for — a printed box and an unprinted box are different products, and only one of them needs a print run.

Exact dimensions, board weights and counts per carton are the reference matrix at inner box and master carton formats. What bulk and neutral actually cost and where they stop being the right choice is at bulk and neutral packaging.

Materials, and what each one is for

Master carton: 10 kg master kraft K150/M125K150 B-flute, up to 3 colours. Inner box: 1 kg inner duplex 250 gsm E-flute, varnished, CMYK. Liner: HD 5-micron bag with 1 g silica.

Each of those does one job. The kraft master is the structural wall — it carries the stack in the container and takes the handling. The duplex inner is the presentation surface, which is why it is varnished and printed in four colours rather than built for strength. The liner is the moisture barrier, and it is the component a buyer is most likely to overlook and most likely to feel: charcoal that arrives damp usually arrived that way through a bag that was not sealed. A competitor's failure list names the same things from the other direction — "Weak cartons leading to product damage", "No plastic lining causing moisture exposure", "Poor sealing resulting in broken charcoal briquettes" and "Incorrect labeling causing customs delays" (bintancharcoal.com, 14 April 2026).

What the format does to a container

Packaging decides how much product fits in the box you are paying to ship. Our measured payloads are by shape rather than by packing style, and they are the standard boxed packing:

We publish no separate payload for bulk. It is the obvious next number and we have not measured it, so it is not here. The market does publish one — and the figure that circulates comes from an entity this site does not cite, which is reason enough to leave it alone. What we do publish is the price difference, because that is on our own grid: boxed and bulk are 80 USD per tonne apart, the same on all five tiers.

How the cartons are then stowed — the thermal blanket, the headspace, the door gap — is a dangerous-goods matter rather than a packaging one, and it is set out at stuffing, temperature and headspace.

The code on every carton

Every master carton is printed with a four-digit batch production code, two letters identifying the packing team, and one check digit. The batch code identifies the production batch whose QC file holds the laboratory COA and the factory’s own results. That is the thread from a carton in your warehouse back to the laboratory certificate for the material inside it — the archive behind it is described at retained samples and per-batch COAs. Inner-box marking: not recorded.

Marking beyond the code is a regulatory question rather than a branding one, and it belongs to the artwork. The carbon-monoxide warning panel that a retail box has to carry, and where it has to sit, is set out once on dieline and artwork requirements — this page links it rather than repeating it, because a regulatory panel published in two places is a panel that will eventually disagree with itself.

Your own box instead of ours

Everything above is our standard packing. If the box has to carry your brand there are two routes, and they differ in lead time rather than in price. House designs are always in stock — no print lead time and take a sticker with your company details on the side panel. A print run of your own artwork adds a design cycle and no per-tonne cost: the formats, the minimums and the proofing sequence are at private-label packaging, and the box lineup question — which formats to run at all — is worked through at OEM packaging formats and weights.