You have a product headed to retail and a choice to make. Stand up blistering in-house, or hand the operation to a co-packer that already runs lines across six campuses in North America and Europe.
Blister packaging is a retail pack format in which a product sits in a clear formed cavity, sealed to a printed paperboard card or a second plastic panel. The cavity holds the product; the card carries the branding, the barcode, and the hang feature.
Running blister in-house means buying or dedicating a sealer, cutting seal tooling for every card size, training operators on load and seal parameters, and keeping a crew on that equipment between promotions. Handing it to a contract packager converts that into a line rate. You still pay for tooling. The equipment, the operators, and the idle time sit on our side.
We are a pure-play co-packer. We do not sell you blisters. We run the blister operation: forming or receiving the cavity, loading your product, sealing the card, and packing out to the master carton or the retail display.
We're working with customers to move most of our blister portfolio toward paper-based formats and pack redesigns.
Where a blister construction is still the right call for the product and the retailer, we keep producing it: face seal, full-face seal, trapped blister, and slide blister.
If your specification calls for something outside this list, tell us the requirement and we'll work with you and our supplier base to land on the most sustainable option that still does the job.
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Face seal and full-face seal
The simplest carded construction. A formed cavity heat-seals to the printed face of a card. Face seal bonds only around the flange; full-face seal bonds across the entire card, which stiffens the pack and resists tampering. Both need a heat-seal coating on the board.
Trapped and slide blisters
Trapped blister sandwiches the flange between two boards, so no heat-seal coating is required and the board and plastic separate at end of life. Slide blister uses a card that slots into the formed part.
Both.
We seal blisters supplied to us already formed, and we run inline thermoforming. Select customers also run in-house blister thermoforming with us.
As more of our customers move toward plastic-free packaging, that mix keeps shifting further toward paper-based and pack-modified solutions.
Forming films: rPET and aPET
rPET carries post-consumer content and forms close to virgin PET. We run it at PCR levels up to 80%. In Europe we also run aPET. Grade, clarity, and forming behavior all shift with recycled content, so the film gets qualified on the actual tool before artwork is committed.
Blister board and heat-seal coating
The card is usually solid bleached board printed offset and then coated with a heat-seal lacquer on the seal face. Caliper drives how the pack hangs, how the hang hole holds under weight, and how the card survives the trip to shelf. Coating weight drives seal strength and clean opening.
Lidding, foil, and tamper evidence
On a carded pack the printed board is the lidding. Where a moisture or light barrier matters, a foil or foil-laminate lidding replaces it, sealed cavity by cavity. A full-face seal, a welded flange, or a trapped construction all make opening visible, which is what retailers mean by tamper-evident.
Paper-forward blister systems
Where the product allows it, we run paper blister structures on recycled or virgin board, sealed with a heat-seal varnish instead of a plastic lidding film. This is the direction most of our blister portfolio is moving.
Form the cavity
Thermoforming heats a web of film until it softens, then pressure or vacuum pulls it into the cavity shape held by the forming tool. Cold forming, which stretches a foil laminate instead of heating plastic, belongs to unit-dose pharmaceutical work and not to retail carded packs. Cavity depth, draw ratio, and wall thickness all get proved on the forming tool before a single unit runs.
Load the cavity
Loading is where retail blister gets decided. Product goes into the cavity by hand or by automation, oriented the way the shopper will see it, and it has to stay there through the seal station, the carton, the pallet, and the shelf. Cavity fit does that work. Too loose and the product rotates or rattles; too tight and the operator fights every cycle.
Seal, then pack out
The card and the loaded blister meet under a heated sealing platen. Seal dies matched to the card size press the flange against the coated board at a set temperature, pressure, and dwell. From there the pack goes into the master carton, and in the same pass it can be assembled into a PDQ tray, a sidekick, a counter unit, or a club pallet display.
We run mixed solutions here: some items are pre-produced and others move straight from the blister line into the shelf-ready display in the same pass.
Send us your program details and we'll come back with an accurate quote.
Card size, caliper, hang feature
Card size is set by the retailer's planogram before it is set by your product. Caliper follows from pack weight. The hang feature follows from the fixture: a round hang hole, a euro slot, or a die-cut J-hook slot, plus a foot if the pack also has to stand.
Cavity fit and product retention
Bring a real production unit, not a prototype. Weight, surface finish, and any flex in the product all change how it sits. Retention is proved with a drop test and a shipping trial before tooling is cut, because a cavity that lets the product rotate reads as damage on shelf.
Tooling, artwork, volume, timing
Tooling is a one-time cost tied to a card size and cavity, and it carries forward across reruns. Card size drives the seal cost per unit. Ink count and finish drive the board cost.
We don't set a fixed minimum order quantity. Plan around at least one pallet-sized order per run. For an existing program where only the artwork changes, count on up to four weeks. For a new blister design, a modified one, or a repeat order, contact us for a lead-time estimate specific to your program and volume.
Retail blister has a recyclability problem that regulation is now pricing. The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation sets design-for-recycling requirements and recycled-content targets across the bloc, and extended producer responsibility fees in a growing number of markets are eco-modulated, so a pack that is harder to recycle costs more to put on shelf. If your brand sells into Europe, that is a design constraint.
A PET blister on a PET-compatible structure moves through one recycling stream. Mixed constructions do not. The practical route on a carded pack is a trapped blister, where the plastic and the board separate at end of life without a heat-seal coating bonding them together.
PPWR sets rising minimum recycled-content thresholds for plastic packaging placed on the EU market, with staged compliance dates. Our own rPET and paper blister programs are already built around that direction: rPET up to 80% PCR, aPET in Europe, and paper board with heat-seal varnish where the product allows it.
Packs holding food, beverage, or supplement products carry food-contact requirements on every layer that touches the product, plus labeling rules that differ between North America and Europe. Child-resistant and senior-friendly formats add their own testing. Confirm the standard that applies before the cavity is designed.
Send us the product and the retailer you are packing for. We will come back with a construction, a tooling path, and a quote you can plan against.
Face seal bonds the blister flange to the card only where the flange sits. Full-face seal bonds the whole back of the blister to the card. Full-face costs more in board coating and seal area but produces a stiffer, harder-to-open pack.
No. We stepped away from high-frequency blister on sustainability grounds, and customer demand for it is limited. If your specification calls for it anyway, we'll work with you and our supplier base on the closest sustainable alternative.
Tooling is cut once for a given cavity and card size. It covers the forming tool that shapes the plastic and the seal die that presses the flange to the board. It carries forward to every rerun of that pack.
We don't set a fixed MOQ. Plan around at least one pallet-sized order. Lead time runs up to four weeks for artwork-only changes on an existing program. For a new or modified blister, or for repeat orders, contact us for a lead-time estimate specific to your volume.
Only if the cavity is drawn to nominal dimensions instead of the real tolerance range. A cavity designed around production samples, with light interference at the contact points, holds orientation through the seal station, the carton, and the shelf.
We're moving most of our blister portfolio toward paper-based formats, so our film use is narrower than the market default. On the plastic side, we run rPET, including PCR levels up to 80%, and aPET in Europe. On the paper side, we run blister board, recycled or virgin, sealed with a heat-seal varnish instead of a plastic lid. If your pack calls for a different film, tell us and we'll work with you and our supplier base to find the most sustainable option that still meets the spec.
It depends on the construction. A trapped blister separates into board and plastic, so each goes to its own stream. A heat-sealed card bonds the two, which most municipal systems will not separate. Mono-material design is the route to a recyclable pack.
If the pack is placed on the EU market, yes. PPWR sets design-for-recycling criteria and minimum recycled content for plastic packaging, on staged dates. Brands selling in both regions usually converge on one construction rather than run two specifications.
es. We run mixed solutions: some items are pre-produced, others move straight from the blister line into the shelf-ready display in the same pass. Tell us your program details and we'll come back with an accurate quote.
Both. We seal blisters supplied to us already formed, and we run inline thermoforming. Select customers run in-house thermoforming with us. Both paths are moving the same direction: toward paper-based and plastic-free formats as that becomes the right fit for the product.