Menasha Packaging is the industry’s largest independent retail-focused packaging and merchandising supply chain solutions provider in North America. Founded in Neenah, WI in 1849, Menasha Packaging operates facilities throughout North America and manufacturers and fulfills corrugated graphic packaging, folding carton graphic packaging, and display merchandising solutions for over 2,500 global brands.
Menasha’s end-to-end process (shown below) includes design and testing; packaging, displays, and signage; print technologies; and multichannel fulfillment—all driven by data and insights, supported with project management and automation.
For major global CPG companies, Menasha Packaging provides displays, which include
pallet programs, floor stands, sidekicks and power wings, and PDQ displays.
Menasha also supports CPG companies in developing and managing their graphic packaging strategies, including primary folding carton and corrugated packaging, twin packs, and multipacks for the club channel. These twin and multipacks involve bundling two or three products together into one finished good unit for sale.
A culture of continuous improvement
What truly differentiates Menasha is the unique level of service the company provides its customers—and the company’s culture of proactive, continuous improvement.
Menasha doesn’t engage in continuous improvement for the sake of its own efficiency, safety, or margins; the company’s focus on continuous improvement is to help its customers.
Brad Clark, Continuous Improvement Design Manager at Menasha, is constantly focused on better understanding what Menasha’s core customers need. He and others at Menasha are consultative and proactive in taking new ideas to customers that solve their most important problems.
Driving cost savings for major CPGs—in partnership with PakTech
A priority for Clark is constantly looking for ideas to help a large CPG customer control their costs. In searching for ideas, Clark frequently conducts audits of retailers across the country. “I want to see firsthand what’s out there, what’s trending, what’s working, and what’s failing.”
When conducting retail audits, Clark repeatedly saw PakTech handles bundling products.
He was intrigued by these handles as he saw them providing significant benefits for his major CPG customer.
“It does exactly what it needs to do in creating a TwinPak or 3Pak and it’s such a minimal amount of packaging. I thought, this can drive significant cost savings.”
Brad Clark, Menasha Packaging
Upon learning about PakTech’s handles, Clark reached out to PakTech to explain his vision and his desire to lower the costs for this CPG customer. PakTech embraced Clark and Menasha’s vision and responded enthusiastically, “Let’s do this together.”
This led PakTech to develop custom handles for Menasha’s major CPG customer and led Menasha to experiment with building multipacks, using PakTech handles.
In partnering together, Menasha was able to significantly reduce its packaging and total landed costs for this CPG customer, which meant increased margins for the CPG. It also strengthened Menasha’s relationship with this CPG, as Menasha proactively came to them with an exciting cost-saving idea.
Additional benefits of PakTech Handles
While cost savings was the initial driver, Menasha and this CPG saw two other major benefits of PakTech’s handles.
First, other multipack packaging often covers the product and may shield branding.
But because PakTech’s handles are so small, brand visibility is dramatically improved.“The product is the hero on the shelf,” said Clark.
The other important benefit is sustainability. Switching to PakTech’s handles made sense because the amount of packaging material is dramatically reduced, PakTech’s handles are made from 100% recycled HDPE, and they can be recycled again by consumers.
“Learning about their product’s sustainability made me comfortable personally in selling this internally and to our customer. I believe in the sustainability of it.”
Brad Clark, Menasha Packaging
Building multipacks at scale
All aspects of Menasha’s value proposition made sense to this CPG: the total landed price with the TwinKlips was attractive, the product was the hero on the shelf, and PakTech’s TwinKlips have a positive sustainability story.
However, Menasha faced another challenge— applying the TwinKlips at scale. “We needed to figure out how to apply millions of TwinKlips onto millions of packages without destroying people’s fingers and wrists,” Clark recalled.
Menasha saw an opportunity to invest in automation in order to deliver the volume its CPG customer requires, at the low cost that Menasha envisioned.
Again, PakTech sprang into action. The company’s engineering team built a custom automated machine for Menasha to apply its TwinKlips at scale. Menasha conducted a trial, found that this machinery worked as intended, and is ramping up use.
In addition to collaborating to build a custom machine to apply the TwinKlips at scale, PakTech was also extremely flexible in partnering with Menasha on the financing and acquisition of this machinery, allowing Menasha to purchase the equipment, lease it, or simply build the cost into the Klips. “They were very flexible,” noted Clark.
Expanding the partnership
While using PakTech handles for this CPG was a massive project – involving millions of TwinKlips, millions of 3Paks, and new machinery – it was only the beginning.
Now that Menasha and this CPG see the multiple benefits of these minimal, recycled handles—and of partnering with PakTech—Menasha is partnering with this CPG to expand the use of TwinKlips and 3Paks to other brands. Menasha is also actively in the process of expanding PakTech solutions to other CPG companies.
Clark explained that while partnering with PakTech began as a limited project for one brand at one CPG, based on the success of this project, Menasha already has 8 to 10 other high-volume projects with PakTech confirmed for 2026, representing millions and millions of PakTech handles.
“I see more opportunities ahead that all result from the collaboration between Menasha and PakTech,” Clark said.
Reflections on partnering with PakTech
Clark sees many similarities between Menasha and PakTech. Both companies emphasize listening to and understanding their customers and provide exceptional service in creatively solving problems. Clark characterized the people at PakTech as patient, fast, flexible, and responsive, with expertise in sales, engineering, problem solving, building relationships, and customer service.
“The service level that PakTech provides to its customers is incredible.”
Brad Clark, Menasha Packaging
Learn More
Visit:
-
Menasha Packaging at menasha.com
- PakTech. paktech-opi.com