Plain and Printed Cornerboards
Dedicated to providing the best in packaging and supply chain technology since 1970, SPS is your source for plain and printed cornerboards, custom cornerboards, and edge protection packaging used to protect products, cartons, pallets, and unitized loads during shipping, handling, and storage.
Our cornerboard and edge protection solutions can help reinforce vulnerable edges, stabilize palletized products, distribute strapping pressure, support stretch film performance, and reduce damage throughout the supply chain. From standard cardboard edge protectors to custom printed solutions, SPS can help you identify practical, cost-effective packaging materials for your application.
Cornerboard and Edge Protector Applications
Cornerboards are used to protect, reinforce, stabilize, and unitize products across industrial, food and beverage, consumer goods, manufacturing, warehouse, and distribution environments.
The correct edge protectors for shipping can help prevent crushed corners, strapping damage, shifting loads, stretch film distortion, and product damage caused by stacking or handling. Cornerboards can also improve load consistency and help products maintain their shape throughout storage and transportation.
Our cornerboard and edge protection solutions can be used for applications such as:
- Product edge and corner protection
- Pallet edge protection and stabilization
- Carton and case protection
- Strapping pressure distribution
- Stretch film support and load unitization
- Compression strength and stacking support
- Shipping, distribution, and warehouse storage
- Industrial packaging
- Food and beverage packaging
- Consumer goods packaging
- Product identification and handling instructions
- Branded packaging programs
Contact an SPS packaging specialist to learn how our cornerboards and pallet protection solutions can support your products, packaging process, and supply chain goals.
Types of Cornerboards and Edge Protection Packaging
Cornerboards are available in a range of lengths, leg dimensions, thicknesses, strengths, colors, finishes, and printed configurations. SPS works with customers to evaluate load weight, pallet configuration, shipping conditions, and containment requirements to recommend the most effective cornerboard solution for improving load stability and reducing product damage throughout the supply chain.
Our team can help you compare plain, printed, custom, corrugated, and specialty cornerboards to identify the most practical option for your application.
Plain Cornerboards
Plain cornerboards provide dependable edge and corner protection without custom printing or graphics. They can be placed vertically or horizontally along cartons, palletized products, rolled goods, stacked containers, and other vulnerable package edges.
These cardboard corner protectors can help reinforce loads, distribute pressure, and reduce damage caused by strapping, stretch film, stacking, impact, and material handling equipment.
Plain cornerboards can help with:
- Pallet edge protection
- Carton reinforcement
- Load stabilization
- Product corner protection
- Strapping pressure distribution
- Stretch film support
- Stacking strength
- Warehouse and distribution handling
- Cost-effective damage prevention
Plain cornerboards may be a strong option for operations that need consistent protection without custom printing or specialized branding requirements.
Contact us to learn more or get a quote for RSC shipping containers and corrugated inserts.
Printed Cornerboards
Printed cornerboards combine functional edge protection with custom branding, product identification, instructions, or promotional messaging.
Printing can help businesses improve brand visibility and communicate important information throughout storage, handling, shipping, and retail distribution. Depending on the application, printed cornerboards may display logos, product names, directional arrows, handling instructions, safety messages, barcodes, lot information, or other custom graphics.
Printed cornerboards can help with:
- Brand recognition
- Product identification
- Handling instructions
- Shipment organization
- Warehouse visibility
- Retail presentation
- Private-label packaging
- Food and beverage packaging
- Consumer goods packaging
- Branded pallet loads
Printed pallet corner protectors can be especially useful when products are transported or displayed as palletized units and the protective packaging remains visible throughout the supply chain.
Contact us to learn more or request a quote for printed cornerboards.
Custom Cornerboards
Custom cornerboards can be designed around a product’s dimensions, weight, packaging configuration, stacking requirements, and distribution environment.
Depending on the application, cornerboards may be customized by:
- Length
- Leg width
- Material thickness
- Strength
- Color
- Finish
- Shape
- Score pattern
- Cut or notch configuration
- Moisture-resistant properties
- Application method
Custom corrugated corner boards and paper-based edge protectors can support products that have unusual dimensions, vulnerable surfaces, unique stacking patterns, or specialized shipping requirements.
SPS’s package engineering and design capabilities can help develop a custom solution that provides the appropriate reinforcement without using an unnecessarily heavy or oversized material.
Contact us to discuss custom cornerboard options for your product and pallet configuration.
Edge Protection for Strapping Loads
Strapping can apply concentrated pressure to cartons, containers, bundles, and palletized products. Without proper protection, straps may crush package edges, cut into cartons, deform products, or create instability within the load.
Strapping edge protectors are placed between the strap and the product to distribute tension across a wider surface area. This can help maintain strapping force while reducing pressure on vulnerable edges.
Strapping edge protection can help with:
- Reducing strap-related carton damage
- Preventing straps from cutting into packaging
- Distributing strapping pressure
- Protecting soft, flexible, or compressible products
- Maintaining load shape
- Reinforcing bundled products
- Supporting safer pallet handling
- Improving consistency during transportation
Strapping edge protectors may be used with steel, polyester, polypropylene, or other strapping systems, depending on the product and application requirements.
Contact us to learn more about edge protection for strapped loads.
Pallet and Load Stabilization Solutions
Cornerboards can play an important role in maintaining pallet shape and load stability. When positioned around the vertical edges of a unitized load, they can provide reinforcement that helps cartons remain aligned during wrapping, stacking, storage, and transportation.
Our pallet edge protectors can work as part of a broader load containment system that may include stretch film, strapping, top sheets, slip sheets, anti-slip materials, and other packaging components.
Pallet and load stabilization solutions can help:
- Maintain vertical load alignment
- Reduce shifting during transit
- Improve stretch film performance
- Reinforce carton corners
- Support stacking strength
- Distribute compression pressure
- Reduce crushed cases
- Improve warehouse handling
- Support pallet unitization
- Minimize product damage and returns
The correct solution depends on the load pattern, product weight, pallet dimensions, center of gravity, transportation method, stretch film properties, and containment force requirements.
Contact an SPS packaging specialist to evaluate your palletized load and identify practical pallet protection solutions.
Carton and Case Edge Protection
Individual cartons and cases can experience damage before they ever reach a pallet. Products may be exposed to impacts, compression, stacking pressure, conveyor contact, warehouse handling, and repeated movement during fulfillment.
Carton edge protection can help reinforce vulnerable edges and maintain the shape of boxes, cases, and shipping containers. Edge protectors may be applied to individual packages or incorporated into a larger palletized load.
Carton and case protection can help with:
- Reinforcing weak carton edges
- Preventing crushed corners
- Improving stacking performance
- Supporting heavy or irregular products
- Reducing cosmetic package damage
- Protecting retail-ready packaging
- Improving shipment presentation
- Supporting eCommerce fulfillment
For products where the shipping carton is also part of the customer experience, protecting exterior edges can help improve presentation and reduce the likelihood of returns caused by visible packaging damage.
Contact us to learn more about carton and case edge protection.
Specialty Edge Protection
Some products require more than a standard right-angle cornerboard. Specialty edge protection can be selected or engineered for irregular shapes, rounded products, rolled goods, curved surfaces, unique pallet patterns, moisture-sensitive environments, or specialized shipping conditions.
Specialty solutions may include:
- Notched cornerboards
- Scored or foldable edge protectors
- Custom-cut configurations
- Short-length corner protectors
- Horizontal edge protection
- Protective caps
- Reinforced profiles
- Moisture-resistant options
- Printed or color-coded products
- Application-specific shapes
These products can help manufacturers, warehouses, distributors, and fulfillment operations address packaging challenges that cannot be solved with a standard profile.
Contact us to discuss specialty edge protection for your application.
Shipping Edge Protectors
Products can encounter vibration, shifting, compression, impacts, and repeated handling as they travel through the supply chain. Shipping edge protectors help reinforce vulnerable areas and provide an additional layer of protection where damage is most likely to occur.
They may be used on palletized cartons, furniture, appliances, building materials, doors, windows, metal products, rolled goods, consumer products, food and beverage cases, and other shipments with exposed edges or corners.
Shipping edge protectors can support:
- Freight shipments
- Less-than-truckload transportation
- Full truckload transportation
- Warehouse transfers
- Export packaging
- Retail distribution
- eCommerce fulfillment
- Long-term storage
- Repeated material handling
By reducing edge damage and helping loads remain stable, the correct solution can support lower damage costs, fewer rejected shipments, and improved supply chain performance.
Five Reasons to Choose SPS Cornerboards
When you need reliable cornerboards and edge protection, partner with SPS to identify a solution that fits your products, protects your shipments, and supports your packaging operation.
Our experienced packaging specialists can help evaluate cornerboard dimensions, thickness, strength, printing, pallet configuration, strapping pressure, stretch film performance, stacking requirements, storage conditions, and cost per packaged unit.
Choose SPS cornerboards because they are:
- Available in plain, printed, standard, and custom formats
- Suitable for pallet, carton, case, strapping, storage, and shipping applications
- Customizable by length, leg width, thickness, strength, color, print, and configuration
- Designed to protect products and support load stability
- Backed by experienced packaging specialists focused on practical, cost-effective solutions
Contact our SPS packaging specialists to discover even more reasons to choose our cornerboards and edge protection products.
How Do You Choose the Right Cornerboard?
Choosing the right cornerboard depends on the product, pallet configuration, packaging process, and performance requirements.
A lightweight carton may require a different edge protector than a tall, heavy, or irregular palletized load. A product secured with high-tension strapping may need stronger edge protection than a stretch-wrapped case load. Printed retail packaging may also require different materials or finishes than an industrial shipment.
Important factors to consider include:
- Product dimensions
- Product weight
- Pallet size and configuration
- Load height
- Stacking requirements
- Shipping method
- Storage conditions
- Strapping type and tension
- Stretch film type and containment force
- Edge and corner vulnerability
- Material thickness
- Required compression strength
- Branding or identification needs
- Moisture exposure
- Damage reduction goals
- Packing process
- Equipment compatibility
- Cost per packaged unit
For example, standard cardboard edge protectors may provide appropriate protection for a consistent case load, while a taller or heavier pallet may require thicker cornerboards with greater compression strength. Printed cornerboards may be the right choice when brand visibility or handling instructions are important. Custom-cut products may be needed for unusual load shapes or specialized packaging processes.
If you are unsure which cornerboard or edge protector is right for your application, contact an SPS packaging specialist to compare available options.
Can You Reduce or Eliminate Cornerboard Usage?
Some packaging operations may be able to reduce or eliminate cornerboards by improving their stretch wrapping process and increasing load containment force.
SPS can evaluate your pallet loads through our stretch wrap optimization and Load Guardian program. This process can help determine whether your existing stretch film, equipment settings, wrap pattern, and containment force are sufficient to stabilize the load without the same level of cornerboard support.
Potential optimization opportunities may include:
- Selecting a more effective stretch film
- Adjusting pre-stretch levels
- Improving film force
- Modifying the wrap pattern
- Increasing containment force
- Reducing unnecessary film use
- Improving load consistency
- Reducing or eliminating cornerboards where testing supports the change
Cornerboards should not be removed without evaluating the complete load containment system. Eliminating a protective component without proper testing could increase load movement, product damage, film failures, or transportation risks.
SPS can also conduct a broader packaging productivity analysis to identify material, equipment, and process improvements. An SPS packaging specialist can assess your operation and help determine whether cornerboard reduction is practical for your loads.
Our Promise to Our Customers
After more than 50 years in business, it is an honor to have earned the confidence and trust required to become an industry-leading packaging distributor.
We have succeeded because our customers recognize our commitment to their satisfaction, which includes our promises to:
- Provide innovative and affordable packaging solutions
- Continually improve to stand above the rest
- Improve productivity and uptime with skilled technical support
- Execute flawlessly
Whether you need cornerboards, stretch packaging, strapping, cartons and corrugate, protective packaging, food packaging, flexible films, or another packaging solution, we will stand behind our products and service—and that is a promise.
Cornerboards FAQ
What are cornerboards used for?
Cornerboards protect product edges and corners during shipping, storage, handling, and palletization. They can also reinforce cartons, stabilize loads, and reduce pressure from strapping or stretch film.
What is the difference between plain and printed cornerboards?
Plain cornerboards provide standard protection, while printed cornerboards can include logos, product identification, handling instructions, or other custom messaging.
Can cornerboards help stabilize pallet loads?
Yes. Pallet corner protectors can help maintain load shape, improve stretch film performance, distribute pressure, and support stacking strength.
Can cornerboards be customized?
Yes. Cornerboards may be customized by length, width, thickness, strength, color, print, finish, and configuration to fit the application.
How do I choose the right cornerboard?
The right option depends on product size, load weight, pallet configuration, shipping method, storage conditions, and whether strapping or stretch film is used. SPS can help evaluate the application and recommend a practical solution.
Can cornerboard usage be reduced or eliminated?
Yes. Through stretch wrap optimization and the Load Guardian program, SPS can evaluate whether improved film selection, wrap patterns, equipment settings, or containment force may reduce the need for cornerboards.
We’re Your Packaging Partner
When you partner with SPS, you will have the confidence of knowing you have chosen a company dedicated to your success.
- SQF Certified Provider
- Cost-effective packaging solutions
- Highly knowledgeable and experienced team
- Fast response times
- Large selection of packaging materials
- Custom packaging and optimization support
- Packaging equipment and technical service capabilities
To learn more about our plain and printed cornerboards, edge protectors for shipping, and pallet load stabilization solutions, contact an SPS packaging specialist and discover why we are “The Whole Package.”