More Than a Box: The Value of Connected Packaging

THIS article is based on a recent podcast interview with Lars and Christian Engel, you can listen to the podcast here.

BHS Corrugated believes connected packaging could turn corrugated board from a commodity into a digital business platform.

For more than a century, the corrugated box has performed a vital but largely unglamorous role. It protects goods, enables transportation and, once opened, is usually discarded. Its commercial value has traditionally been measured by familiar criteria: material strength, print quality, price and delivery reliability. Lars and Christian Engel, owners and managing directors of BHS Corrugated, believe this model is about to change.

Their argument begins with an apparently unremarkable piece of technology: the QR code. Most consumers associate such codes with restaurant menus or links to websites. These are typically static, meaning that the same code appears on thousands or millions of products. Serialization changes the proposition. Give every box a unique code and each package acquires its own digital identity.

The code is no longer the content, says Lars; it becomes the key. Behind it sits a database containing the box’s digital twin and the information attached to it. The result is what BHS Corrugated calls “cyber-physical packaging”: a bridge between a physical package and the online world.

This distinction matters. A static code can deliver generic information. A serialized one can identify the individual package, the product inside it, its origin, destination and movements through the supply chain. Depending on permissions and the system behind it, the information presented can change according to who scans the code, where they are and at which stage of the product’s journey the scan takes place.

The timing is significant. European product-transparency requirements, including the gradual introduction of digital product passports, are increasing the need to make information about materials, provenance, recyclability, carbon footprint and regulatory compliance accessible. At the same time, the GS1 industry is supporting a transition towards richer two-dimensional codes capable of carrying more useful data than conventional barcodes.

Commercial pressures provide another incentive. Corrugated-board volumes in mature European markets are no longer growing rapidly. For converters accustomed to selling square metres of board, connected packaging offers the possibility of selling digital services instead. In the Engels’ vision, customers may eventually pay not merely for the box, but for its identity and the value created around it.

That value could begin inside the box plant. A unique code might record the paper used, the board specification, its strength characteristics and the purpose for which it was manufactured. If a package fails in transit, the data could help determine whether it was insufficiently specified, badly packed or mishandled during distribution. Over time, producers could use this evidence to reduce over-packaging, remove unnecessary fibre and lower costs without compromising performance.

Serialization could also simplify logistics. Boxes currently accumulate barcodes, shipping labels and tracking stickers as they move through the supply chain. Printing a persistent identity directly onto the corrugated surface could reduce label materials, application costs, processing steps and recycling complications. One code might support production, warehousing, distribution and delivery, while providing the appropriate information at each stage.

Traceability becomes more precise too. Product recalls are often conducted by batch because manufacturers cannot identify the exact units affected. A serialized package could narrow a recall to goods from a particular farm, production line or period. Instead of withdrawing a large volume of perfectly safe products, a company could isolate the affected items. That would reduce waste, cost and reputational damage.

Yet the Engels’ most ambitious claim concerns the relationship between brands and consumers. Although brands invest heavily in customer acquisition, much of their product is sold through retailers. At the checkout, useful knowledge about the buyer often remains with the retailer. The brand may know its supermarket customers extremely well while knowing remarkably little about the people who ultimately consume its products.

Connected packaging could open a route around this information barrier. When a consumer scans a package, the brand can continue the conversation beyond the point of sale and into the home. Product guidance, warranty registration, replenishment, loyalty programmes and personalised offers could all be delivered through the package.

A box containing sports equipment, for example, might connect its owner with lessons at a nearby club. The offer could reflect the product purchased and the location in which the code was scanned. Packaging would no longer be merely the container for a sale; it could initiate the next one.

The proposition also turns the package into a miniature salesperson. A code scanned in a shop could provide detailed product explanations, demonstrations or comparisons that no employee could be expected to retain across thousands of products. Artificial intelligence could make this interaction more conversational and personalised, while the resulting analytics could help brands understand which information customers value.

Such possibilities inevitably raise questions about consent, privacy and control of the data. They also expose the obstacles that have so far slowed adoption. The technical components largely exist, but the commercial structure remains less settled. Who owns the relationship created by the code? Is it the brand, retailer, converter or technology platform? Who receives the greatest benefit—and who pays?

Standards and interoperability will be essential. A logistics-only system might solve one problem, but it would not create the broader ecosystem BHS Corrugated envisages. Connected packaging will become much more valuable if a single identity can link the product, primary packaging, secondary packaging, pallet and distribution network without creating another collection of isolated systems.

For corrugated converters, this represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Their traditional strengths in manufacturing will remain necessary, but customers may increasingly expect data management, software integration and digital services. Because the converter applies the identity to the box, it could occupy a more influential position in the value chain. To claim it, however, it must become more than a supplier of board.

This future also depends heavily on digital printing. Conventional processes can produce regional, seasonal or promotional variants economically at sufficient volume. They cannot change every printed image without changing plates. Once each package requires its own code and therefore a run length of one. In this case, variable-data digital printing becomes unavoidable.

Digital production brings other advantages. Brands can order smaller quantities for Christmas, Easter, Black Friday or local campaigns, reducing the risk of obsolete stock when demand is misjudged. Packaging can be individualized, regionalized and seasonalized without the waste associated with producing large speculative volumes.

Within five years, Lars and Christian expect connected packaging to feel less like an innovation than an inevitability. Regulation may help force the pace, but compliance alone will not sustain investment. Adoption will accelerate when companies recognise the operational savings, marketing intelligence and new sources of revenue available through the box.

The corrugated package will still have to protect its contents, survive transportation and be recycled afterwards. Its physical duties will not disappear. But its digital role could become equally important. The humble brown box may be about to acquire a voice, a memory and an economic value extending far beyond the board from which it is made.

The potential is exciting. The challenge now is to inspire brands, retailers and converters to seize this opportunity and gain true competitive advantage!