Custom Patisserie Boxes

Which Patisserie Box Size Do You Need?

Sizes get called small, medium and large across most of this industry, which tells a buyer nothing. Here are the formats we quote, with what each one actually holds.

Two things set the height, and people usually only think about one of them.

The obvious one is the product. The one that catches people is the lid clearance over a piped or glazed top. A mirror glaze, a chocolate garnish, or a piped crown needs headroom, and a lid resting on a finished dessert is a returned order. Measure your tallest garnish, not your tallest cake.

What Size Macaron Boxes Do You Need?

Macarons get their own sizes because the layout is fixed by the product rather than by the box.

A standard macaron runs about 50 mm across and 8 to 12 grams, with minis at roughly 38 mm and jumbos up to 100 mm. Those numbers set everything below.

The detail that decides the box. Macarons can lie flat or stand on edge. Lying flat, the footprint is set by the diameter and the box stays shallow. Standing on edge, the box needs internal height equal to the macaron diameter, and the length is set by the shell thickness rather than the width.

Standing on edge fits more into less board and it holds them steady in transit. Lying flat photographs better when the lid comes off. Tell us which presentation you want before the dieline is drawn, because the two boxes are not the same box.

What Board and Grease Barrier Does Patisserie Packaging Need?

This is where most bakery packaging pages say food safe and stop. Food safe is not a specification. Here is one.

Grease is the other half of any patisserie packaging specification, and it is measured rather than claimed. The Kit test under TAPPI T 559 rates resistance to oil and grease on a scale of 1 to 12, where a higher number holds out more.

Laminated pastry is the one that surprises bakers. A croissant sitting in a warm van releases far more butter than a slice of cake does. A box rated for cake will show through by the time it arrives.

What Replaced PFAS in Grease Barriers for Bakery Packaging?

If you last bought bakery packaging a few years ago, this changed underneath you.

The FDA announced in February 2024 that substances containing PFAS were no longer being sold into the US market for use as grease-proofing agents on paper food packaging. By January 2025 the agency had determined that 35 food contact notifications covering PFAS-treated paper and paperboard were no longer effective.

So the question is no longer whether a box is PFAS free. It is what is doing the work instead.

• Clay coated board. A mineral coating that resists grease and prints well. The common choice for patisserie.
• PFAS-free chemical treatments. Applied at the mill, and rated by Kit test like any other barrier.
• Greaseproof paper liners. A separate sheet between product and board. Cheap, effective, and it lets you use an uncoated kraft box.
• Laminated or extrusion coated board. The strongest barrier and the hardest to recycle. Worth it for anything wet as well as greasy.

Ask for the Kit rating and the barrier type on your quote. We put both on ours.

Will the Box Hold Up in a Display Chiller?

Here is the part almost nobody covers, and it is the reason patisserie boxes fail.

A refrigerated display case runs cold and very humid. Board absorbs moisture from that air, and it loses strength as it does.

Published testing across 30 to 90 percent relative humidity found that edge crush strength is the most humidity-sensitive property of corrugated board. At low temperature combined with high humidity, edge crush values fell to as little as 22 to 34 percent of their reference value. Shear and torsional stiffness dropped to between 40 and 50 percent.

Translated into a bakery: a box that stacks four high on your bench can lose most of that stacking strength inside a chiller. That is why boxes sag, why lids sink onto the product, and why a stack that was fine at closing has slumped by morning.

There are four things you can do about it, and none of them are expensive.

1. Go up a board weight for anything that lives in a chiller. 400 GSM instead of 350 is the single most effective change.
2. Use a coated or laminated surface, which slows moisture pickup as well as resisting grease.
3. Do not stack chilled boxes as high as you stack dry ones. Two high in the case, not four.
4. Choose a two piece or tray and sleeve style, where the base carries the load rather than a folded lid.

If you tell us the box goes into a chiller, we specify the patisserie packaging differently. Most suppliers will not ask.

Do You Need a Window, and Will It Fog?

A window sells the product, and in a chilled case a plain window fogs. Warm humid air meets a cold film and condenses on it, and the customer sees a blurred rectangle instead of your dessert.

Anti-fog film costs a little more and it is the correct answer for anything that goes into a case. If you have ever wondered why a competitor’s window stays clear and yours does not, that is the reason.

Window shape matters as well. A large window weakens a folded lid. On a 9 inch or 11 inch box we usually recommend a smaller window placed off center rather than a full panel.

Which Box Style Suits Your Product?

Different desserts need different constructions, especially once refrigeration, presentation and transport are all part of the job.

For chilled products the two piece and the tray and sleeve hold up best, because the load sits on the base rather than on a folded lid.

Which Bakery Box Do You Need?

This page covers patisserie packaging specifically. If you are packing something else, these are the right pages.

Ordering several of these together is usually cheaper than adding them one at a time, because tooling is charged per size rather than per order.

What Can You Print on a Patisserie Box?

Custom printed patisserie boxes take every process below, with one constraint that applies to all of them.

Print does not go on the food contact surface. Ink stays on the outside, and the inside stays plain board, a coated liner, or a greaseproof sheet. If you want a printed interior, it is printed with food-safe ink on the surface that does not touch the product, or the product sits on a liner.

• Digital printing. Best under 1,000 units, and it handles short seasonal runs and variable artwork.
• Offset litho. Best above 1,000 units, with the sharpest photographic reproduction.
• Foil stamping. Strong against kraft and against dark board.
• Embossing and debossing. Works on 350 GSM and above. Lighter board loses the impression.
• Matte, gloss, and soft touch lamination. Adds a moisture barrier as well as a finish, which matters for chilled products.
• Spot UV. Best used on a matte base so it reads as a detail.

On kraft, remember that white and pale inks print over a brown base and come out muted. A flood white underprint fixes it, or design with one or two strong colors and let the kraft show through.

Minimum Order, Lead Time, and Samples

• Minimum order: 100 boxes per size. Each size needs its own die.
• Production: 8 to 10 business days after dieline approval. 10 to 12 for rigid and wrapped constructions.
• Plain samples: 3 to 5 business days.
• Printed pre-production samples: 7 to 10 business days.
• Artwork: vector PDF or AI on our dieline with 3 mm bleed, and any Pantone colors identified.
• Shipping terms: FCA and EXW as standard, with DDP quoted to the US and the EU.

For patisserie boxes wholesale, pricing steps down at 500 units and again at 1,000 units on the same artwork. Tooling is a one time cost, so a repeat order in the same size and style does not pay for the die again.

Send us the product dimensions including the tallest garnish, the quantity, whether it goes into a chiller, and your destination. We will specify the board and the barrier around that rather than around a standard.

Request a Quote for Custom Patisserie Boxes

Send us the product dimensions including your tallest garnish, the quantity, your destination, and whether the box goes into a chiller. If you have artwork or an existing box to match, send that too.

We will come back with a dieline sized around your product, a board and barrier specification with the Kit rating, a 3D mock-up, and a firm price.