Automation, Ambition and the road to €100 million · Chris Düringer & Roland Schöberl · Cardbox Pack.

At Cardbox Packaging, automation begins before the first sheet reaches the press. A fully automated board-handling system supplies two Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 presses—a six-color and a seven-color configuration capable of running both conventional and UV inks.

From printing, the sheets move into an extensive die-cutting department equipped with three MK Masterwork Mastermatrix machines. A new MK Masterwork Duopress adds hot foiling, die-cutting, and blanking in a single production process, significantly expanding the products and decorative effects Cardbox can offer its customers.

The company has developed considerably since its early expansion from the main plant in Wolfsberg in 2011 and 2012. Business with key customers in the Czech Republic and the United States created new opportunities, while the acquisition of a facility in Pinkafeld, close to Vienna, strengthened Cardbox Packaging’s capabilities in glued packaging.

Today, the group focuses on three strategic segments: sleeves, glued packaging solutions, and sustainable food-packaging products—particularly paper cups and lids. Food packaging has always been central to the Cardbox business, but sustainable cup-and-lid solutions could become one of its most important growth areas in the coming years.

The market, however, has become increasingly challenging. Overcapacity, pricing pressure, changing supply conditions, and strong competitors from Eastern Europe are making life more difficult for small and medium-sized packaging companies operating in Western Europe.

Survival and growth therefore require more than additional capacity. Companies must identify niches, develop specialized solutions, improve efficiency, and offer services that create genuine value for their customers.

Innovation at Cardbox Packaging is not limited to major technological breakthroughs. It is an everyday process involving product development, small operational improvements, new services, and continuous experimentation with the possibilities offered by new equipment.

The latest investments give Cardbox additional capacity and operational stability, but they also create opportunities the company is still exploring. Employees are training, testing, and learning how the new technology can answer changing customer requirements—often without customers being willing to pay more for the additional complexity.

Automation and artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role. Printed sheets are already being compared automatically with digital reference files, while digitalization is expanding into job preparation, estimating, analytics, and production control.

For Cardbox Packaging, however, successful investment is not only about technology. It is also about partnership.

New equipment inevitably creates new challenges, and packaging producers need suppliers that will continue working with them long after the installation is complete. The relationship between Cardbox Packaging, Heidelberg, and MK Masterwork is built on years of cooperation, shared experience, and trust between the people involved.

Cardbox Packaging describes its central value as customer dedication: understanding what customers need and delivering products, services, and solutions that help make their businesses profitable.

Efficiency, digitalisation, sustainability, and artificial intelligence are important parts of the company’s future—but so are its employees. Through its “We Care for You” philosophy, Cardbox focuses on training, development, working conditions, and giving employees and their families confidence in the future.

The ambition is clear. By 2030, Cardbox Packaging aims to reach €100 million in revenue while maintaining sustainable profitability. Further acquisitions are already being considered, and additional investment is planned at the company’s US operation.

Watch the film and visit Cardbox Packaging to see how technology, partnerships, sustainability, and people are being combined to prepare the company for its next stage of growth.