Efficiency of utilizing corrugated box, plastic and wooden crate: Eggshell breakage reduction during distribution

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to reduce egg breakage during transit by utilizing and testing the efficiency of using corrugated box, plastic, and a wooden crate as secondary packaging and comparing their performance to that of not using any secondary packaging during egg distribution and increasing the number of allowable tray stacks; thereby ensuring egg quality and stacked egg tray stability while lowering the cost. A laboratory performance test consisting of drop and vibration tests, as well as a trundling test, was performed to carry out this study. In the trundling test, the plastic crate and wooden crate produced the most undamaged layer eggs, followed by the corrugated box and without secondary packaging, while in laboratory testing, the plastic crate outperformed all other packaging materials in terms of egg protection, followed by the wooden crate, the corrugated box, and without secondary packaging. Statistically, there is no significant difference in the performance of the four packages. Cost analysis showed the plastic crate was the most cost-effective packaging to use, followed by the wooden crate, the corrugated box, and no secondary packaging. It was shown that a plastic crate can be a better secondary package when transporting eggs.