Flat sheets of corrugated paperboard, typically referred to as blanks, have been used for many years as the starting material to form containers. Corrugated paperboard generally refers to a multi-layer sheet material comprised of two sheets of liner bonded to a central corrugated layer of medium. Given a basic size requirement specified by the customer, industry standards, and the preference for low cost, paperboard container manufacturers strive to provide structural stacking strength with a minimal amount of corrugated paperboard.
In shipping and displaying products, particularly in a retail setting, it is desirable to have a container which is easy to pack, sturdy and fully enclosed for protection of contents during storage and shipping, and also suitable for display at a retail site. For example, it is beneficial to have a container which allows a customer at a retail site to easily reach into the container and remove products for purchase. Of course, the access opening through which a consumer can access the products must also be closed during shipment and storage to prevent spilling of the product out of the container. This has resulted in the development of a variety of containers which are configured to be convertible from a shipping configuration to a display configuration, which permits the converted container to be placed directly upon a shelf, or floor display, without having to remove the individual product items from the container. Typically, this is accomplished by providing the container with removable portions of the container that create apertures through which customers may then help themselves to the products within the converted container.
Such convertible containers represent a challenge in that they must be readily convertible into a form presentable to customers, while at the same time maintaining certain shipping performance characteristics, suitable for the shipment of non-self-supporting or even fragile products. Prior attempts at providing a displayable shipping container may suffer from a number of disadvantages. For example, prior displayable shipping containers often are either lacking in the necessary shipping performance characteristics or, in order to provide such performance, have structural elements that remain in position after converting to a display configuration that make access to the product inconvenient. Other displayable shipping containers are labor intensive to manufacture, assemble, or convert. And still other containers require excessive materials or, in some cases, extraneous components (e.g., a tie or a wrap) to secure a lid on a body of the container. Once converted to a display configuration, many displayable shipping containers often also include rough, unfinished, jagged, and uneven surfaces in prominent locations that are somewhat unsightly and do not provide the appeal of a neat, clean and presentable display.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a container that addresses many, if not all, of these disadvantages.