James Cropper Pioneers Customer-Co-Created Paper Packaging for Color Precision and Circularity

James Cropper, a leading paper packaging specialist, is revolutionizing color accuracy and sustainable design through collaborative processes with clients. The company addresses metamerism—where colors match under one light but differ under another—by involving customers in the color-matching phase, testing dye and pigment blends under varied lighting to ensure consistent results across production runs. Head of Technical Stephanie Walker emphasizes creating master standards that maintain hue, saturation, and luminance regardless of batch or location, critical since color influences purchasing decisions in packaging.

The firm balances post-consumer recycled fiber for circularity against virgin fiber strength, evaluating surface treatments, emboss patterns for tactile appeal, and print fidelity via rapid lab trials. These efforts consider variables like fiber length, water quality, and whitening agents in recycled content, enabling designs that harmonize with production realities. Hands-on experiences at the vat and color lab allow creative teams to optimize delta-E tolerances, opacity, and ink holdout, enhancing multi-sensory packaging performance from lab to scale.