Michele Choate / Senior Director Corp Image High End Packaging

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelechoate/
michelec@corp-image.com 
https://www.corp-image.com/

What makes these boxes more sustainable? 
Why raw fiber board is a great choice and a great look? 
Are you looking for high end packaging? 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors . Today's guest is my friend, Michelle Choate. She is the senior director of strategy and market expansion for corporate image. Hey, how are you? Good. Thank you so much for being on the show. We appreciate it. I am thrilled to be highlighting your company because I think what you're doing is amazing. And I can't wait to share it with the world. So can you tell us about yourself? Tell us about your background.

Michele Choate: 1:00

Sure. I've been with corporate image for three years. Before a corporate image, I was with a company called ESCO, which produces a rigid board for the industry. Prior to that, I worked for several different high-end luxury brands. So of course it was a perfect match all the way around corporate and which was launching this whole new rigid box line. And we were in fact targeting luxury brands. So with that being said, it just seemed to be a really good fit on.

Cory Connors: 1:24

Well, that's wonderful. And the luxury brand market packaging is historically very unsustainable with their materials. So what you're doing , is a huge innovation and frankly, a step forward in the right direction for that space. So thank you for that. What is corporate image? What do you do? What, what's the secret sauce?

Michele Choate: 1:48

Well, Horwood image is a 40 year old company. Our parent company has been around for a hundred years, so we celebrate our a hundred year anniversary last year in October. So that's wonderful. We're an employee owned company. As such, we take pride in everything that we do, and I think everybody takes a little bit of ownership a little bit further in, in the products that we've produced. So we've produced really high. High quality products. Everything is produced in the U S our manufacturing facilities are based in Iowa. I personally work remotely. So I work out of Miami, Florida. I enjoy the sun. And I certainly, I certainly take a lot of pride in, in rubbing that in during the winter months.

Cory Connors: 2:22

But so this isn't being recorded in a cornfield right now. Okay. Good.

Michele Choate: 2:30

So corporate image, like I said, it's been around for 40 years and we really focused, or the business initially focused on presentation materials, that's binders, folders, pocket folders. We were the first ones to really embrace flex hinges and natural natural made products or stainable products. We used 80 point 90 point 95.0. I think 120 point board to produce binders. We are the world's only naked binders. So we produced binders out of 100%. Post-consumer waste rigid paperboard and is as the board we can use finger bowls. We can flex Hindu. We can do round back binders. We are the leading provider of cloth pounder binders in the U S as. So same cloth that they use in the book industry with our parent company is what they, they, they spearheaded produced. Corporate image has take gone ahead and started producing or started producing cloth bound binders again about 40 years ago. And then we are the leaders in that. We are the. World, we produced the world's best binder. We awarded that in 2016. We are also the largest manufacturer in states, as far as cloth binders, naked binders and everything else. So so we're proud about that. We launched our packaging division a couple of years back. We have spearheaded and trademarked a new product called rigidbox . So that rigid box product is I think probably the foremost in technology innovation in packaging that's taken place recently. We produced the only raw board box in the states currently. So basically we, that, what that is is we take raw paperboard. We groove it and then we can glue it within the edges and corners and bring the box together. So it's unlike a turned edge box. It is purely Robert paper that is producing.

Cory Connors: 4:14

That's excellent. There's so often that we think, oh, we must totally wrap everything and material and it has to be foil stamped and then Boston de boss to be beautiful. And I think what you guys are doing is absolutely a step in the right direction and it's improving sustainability so much. Your, so , your packaging is a hundred percent.

Michele Choate: 4:40

Yes. So the foundation of all of our packaging is a hundred percent recyclable. So it's all using raw paper, board. So something like this and our, you can see it

Cory Connors: 4:49

eventually. Yes.

Michele Choate: 4:50

Cool. So with that, with that, we can produce perfect. 90 degree corners. Unlike most companies doesn't have the rounded edges, raw paper board. We have different colors of raw paperboard. So in this case, it's black and it's solid black all the way through. So I'm like others where you. Black on one side and gray on the other. This was actually black all the way through solid black. So when you cut and dye cut, you can actually include that as part of your branding. So all of our inserts can also be raw eight reports. The full box is fully sustainable. We can do blind D bossing so you can have a fully, again, fully sustainable oils. In some cases can be used in foil. You know, foil was one of those subject matters. Is this sustainable is a nod. It is recyclable. Does it separate? I mean, that's, that's kind of what you guys do in, in defining what that looks like across the country. So I think it's interesting to see if we had a breakdown of, of what states do, but that would be wonderful.

Cory Connors: 5:40

Right? My understanding is good news for that. As long as the foil stamp is not too large. Like if it's not covering the entire box or if it takes up more than 80% of the box, it should be fully recyclable still. And that material will get taken out. There are some foil stamps that are more sustainable. They don't have a poly coating. They're just the metal. And that is the easiest to recycle. But yeah, good news on that front and the packaging that you guys make is beautiful. You sent me a sample kit and I immediately called our vice president of marketing and said, Hey, we gotta, we gotta do these. They're sustainable. They're beautiful. Let's do it. And he said, okay. Let's so we were going to be one of your , partners and that's exciting. Yeah. But I'm honored to be a part of that system and to offer that to our customers and pass along the sustainability, that's really important.

Michele Choate: 6:41

I appreciate that. And it really is a great opportunity for all of us. I thank you for pushing us forward.

Cory Connors: 6:46

Yeah. So what makes your material more sustainable than other material it's it's uncoated? What, what else can you tell us about it?

Michele Choate: 6:56

It's uncoated paper paperboard. So it's actually layered paper board. So it's got three by layers are all out of made out of recycled fiber. Then the, depending on the color of the board, some of it is Virgin, but as you know, Virta fibers necessarily bad depending on where it's grown and how it's grown and cultivated. So it's all FSC certified. Being all as a PC certified, we can carry that FSC certification to the packaging itself. But it does incur a little bit of a cost if you want that certification at the end product. Normally it is the same. It is the same board, whether you have it certified or not because it is coming

Cory Connors: 7:28

from the boat. Yes, I know. I know.

Michele Choate: 7:33

But with that being said like the glues that we used are either protein based or biodegradable. Some people do spec that, so it just depends on the project. We do. From a paper standpoint, if you do want cover material, not to say that we can't use cover material, we can, and we can certainly use any of the brands that are out there. Our parent company is a distributor of ecological fiber and Nina and our own. Cultivated product. So with that, or by dairy products, you say with that being said, we can use sustainable materials to cover the actual box as well, that matches your branding. So again, if it's a necessity certified, you can use an emphasis certified product. We can use uncoated papers as well. So just a matter of what your branding and what your brand and what your vision.

Cory Connors: 8:14

So often we think that we need to import a packaging like that to, to be cost competitive. And what I was thrilled to find was you, your company, and there are a couple others in the U S that are doing this very competitively price wise. And frankly there's a lot less risk because there's almost no freight. And yeah. So that's exciting, but could you tell us A story of some time in your career where you did a packaging project that just was really memorable, like you know, it was for a big company or a friend, or can you tell us something like that?

Michele Choate: 8:56

Sure. Well, there's, there's a lot of memorable projects, but most, most recently, yes, there was, there was a company without naming names, obviously. There was a company that's local. They have several retail stores. About 1200 in total, they had some issues with, with, with re you know, with, with their product coming from overseas. So they did contact us initially for a smaller volume just to, to kind of be that bandaid for product that they couldn't get in time or the further new product line. So ask us, listen, this is the package, some of the, and I'm sure you know this too. So there's a lot of products that are made overseas that are definitely a lot. There's a lot of handwork work. So in the hand work, we're not efficient in hand work. Here in the states, I don't care what company you go to. It is just something that we're not. So if you're willing to, to look at a package in a different way and we're allowed to repurpose, or we envision it we did and we actually made it. So, how do we make it better? When obviously we made a sustainable, it wasn't sustainable coming in from overseas. And then on top of that, we eliminated a lot of plastic. So from that, it was, C one S some touch laminated, you know, all kinds of different things. We took, we ended up switching them over to Robert. So it was a neck and shoulder box with a rod board neck, the insert, instead of being plastic or thermoform will we did a raw paperboard insert. We modified the insert so that there. The, the customer is of an older base and some do have some disability. So we made it so that the answer was easy to, to not only remove, but also remove their actual product. So, so all in all the project actually came out much better than they anticipated, and they ended up ordering a lot more boxes, which is obviously great. And, and they're more elegant. They were much happier with the N. And as far as pricing goes, we were slightly more than they had paid overseas from a per box perspective. But we did save them in the long run from the freight cost taxes and everything else were included. And then of course from a sustainability standpoint, we made their box significantly more. I've actually made their box sustainable versus

Cory Connors: 11:00

right. And what a good feeling for, for the consumer and for the customer to be able to provide products that are easily curbside recyclable. Can you tell us what hand work means? I, I believe it to mean things like gluing and magnets and things like that. Is that what you're speaking of?

Michele Choate: 11:20

And actually we can do a magnet insertion in line and our box. So we are one of the few companies that can in the states, what we cannot do is ribbon. So some companies are, you know, in, in luxury packaging, you're used to a lot of the high-end Chloe and Louis Vuitton boxes that have lots of lip ribbon components that are embedded into their different traits. When you have the unboxing experience a lot of that ribbon work is not, is not produced in inline in any machinery. Cause it's just, it's not, we're not capable of doing it. So as a result of those types of things are not, we're just not cost-effective. However, if you are willing, I said to revision your, your box a little bit, we can do V notches. So instead of doing a rebuttable, we can do a V notch or we can do a finger pool. We can do lots of other things. So it was just a slight modification based on our own.

Cory Connors: 12:12

That's excellent. We need to take a step back and look at it. The packaging that we're using and say why. Yeah. And, and how could we make this different?, this mentality that you have is what all manufacturers should have and all packaging professionals should have is, Hey, do we really need that? Could we do it like this and still make it beautiful? And still make it an like we say it Landsberg, Orora , it's the promise of what's inside and make it exciting too, for the consumer to open. But I love that you don't need satin ribbon wrapped around and tied and not and bows , to be beautiful. There are other options that make it incredible.

Michele Choate: 12:56

Thank you. We take pride in that. So I appreciate this.

Cory Connors: 13:00

Anything new and exciting coming out that you guys have maybe some new capabilities or something that you want to speak.

Michele Choate: 13:07

Well, that is, this, this line in itself is, is still relatively new. So we've been doing this for two years on the robot, on the Bora board side. So again, you can produce a box rock, paper board. You don't need the cover material. We can oil stamp directly on the board. We can also UV pin directly on the board. So depending on the volume we have small volumes, you know, under, under a thousand boxes. It probably makes sense to UV printed versus foil stamping anything higher than that. And then of course, depending on how big and intricate . If it's something simple, one color, then it's probably better to do a foil stamp. From that again, we can do magnet insertion in, in line in our facilities here in Iowa. So that being said a lot of companies go overseas for that kind of work and we can certainly do it in house. We can do a lot of other cool things. So if you, we can do flat full boxes also. So here's what we call a G fold. Ships flat store's flat. And then once you want to put a product in it you just kind of stick it in there and how you got what we call G fold box. So G from a marketing department, cause we opened it up. It looks like a G. Yeah, you just put a sleeve on it, and now it's a retail product. If you want to just use this as your shipping box. So, I mean, put it shipping box around it, and now you've got a nice little cute box that you can use. And of course it folds flat. So what's great about it is it gives you a tremendous amount of also real estate to market and brand your product and tell your story. So we have this in GPL. We have a Z fold also. We also have several other kind of really ingenious designs. We have a a two-sided what we call it a double-sided slip case. So most companies will do one slip case. Well, here we do two different. To pull it out. So just kind of different things that we try to Embry envision things. Again, it's really all about design and trying to make it more exciting. We've done a two-sided drop. So you have like a telescoping box where two of these sides drop down. So if you have a really nice beauty or beauty product in there, it's that ah-ha moments. And when you left. The two sides drop and then there's your beautiful perfume bottle or other cosmetic product or even candles. We've done it for some candle companies as well.

Cory Connors: 15:05

A two-sided drop what a brilliant idea. So to explain this to the listeners, as you pull the top of the box out, what we call a telescoping box, cause it's, cause it's expanding, it's growing, it's growing larger. You, you take the top off and two of the four bottoms, a side. Flopped down and reveal your, your product. What a brilliant idea I had. I haven't seen.

Michele Choate: 15:35

Well, we can do that and we can always do a foresight, a drop, which is a nice thing of the entire thing opens, but in doing the foresight of job, truthfully I liked the two-sided drop better. Because from a stability standpoint, it's easier to open and close,

Cory Connors: 15:47

tough to get back together. I did see a video on a TikTok where they were somebody. Packaging like that with a four-sided drop. And these paper butterflies flew out, which I thought was, was really neat. I was like, wow. I had dozens of people sent me that like, cause I'm like the packaging guy there. So like, Hey,

Michele Choate: 16:11

this is cool. We can definitely do that. And that's in line it's process. It's not hand done. So certainly somebody we can produce mass produce them at our facility.

Cory Connors: 16:19

Well, that's amazing. What would you say is, your favorite part of your job.

Michele Choate: 16:25

I love, I love helping brands and reinvision themselves. I think that is the most exciting to me. It's, it's understanding who they are, what they want, where they want to go, where they want to be, and to be part of that process and helping them develop that brand. So I feel like almost sometimes I'm part of the brand experience with them. So you grow with them and it, you know, it's building that longterm relationship. So this is, this is, this is what it's all about. And I actually.

Cory Connors: 16:49

That's wonderful. How do, how do we get ahold of you? What's what's the best way?

Michele Choate: 16:53

My cell phone I'm, I'm pretty accessible, so I make myself accessible in every way, shape or form. So you got me on LinkedIn which I'm sure I could bribe you a link. My email, so it's Michelec@corp-image.com. So it's M I C H E L E C.@ hyphen image.com. You've also got me on my cell number 7 8 6 4 3 9 4 4 4 5. I'll look me up on LinkedIn, Michelle Choate. I think I'm the only showed up there.

Cory Connors: 17:21

That's a very unique, last name. Do you know the lineage?

Michele Choate: 17:24

As a matter of fact, they do. So my father is half German, half black Irish. So when they came to the states, there's only 2000 and change of us in the states. And we're all actually related somehow. And in one point from where another we came back arrived here four and a half four or five generations ago. And again, we're all related, so I'm pretty big family

Cory Connors: 17:45

tree. Yeah, well thank you again, really appreciate you being on the show and thank you, Landsberg Orora for your sponsorship. If you're listening, please take a minute to review and tell your friends about it. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Thank you so much, Michelle.

Michele Choate: 18:01

Thank you so much, Cory, have a great one.