Smartboxes Teams with Milliken Chemical To Give Children Hours of Safe, Colourful Fun with New In-Flight Airline Meal Box Designs

Smartboxes Ltd. is part of the Farish Associates Design Consultancy Group that specializes in creating and manufacturing customized plastic and cardboard products for the travel industry, coffee shops, and retailers. When the company creates a new product it always delivers something bespoke and very special. Its new line of children’s in-flight airline meal boxes is no exception.

The new “safety-first” meal boxes have been designed by Smartboxes to reduce the risk of hot or cold food falling from the table or tray while in flight. They meet the toughest safety standards of the airline industry, clip firmly shut, and have strong handles so they can be used after the flight as carrying cases for school lunches, children’s games and toys. The trendy new meal boxes have proven a hit with children of all ages, as branded souvenirs of time spent on board with the airlines.

Moulded from clear polypropylene (PP), the design of the new in-flight airline meal boxes delivers cutting-edge styling tailored to the exact requirements of airline specifications. In their latest product styles Smartboxes wanted something that would complement their unique designs and add a new dimension to their products, Smartboxes sought a colour solution as special as the meal box design itself – dazzling, bright, and clean, but also non-toxic and durable.

The company knew that the answer was an exciting range of colours that would deliver high quality clarified colour transparency as accents or saturated throughout the designs. So the company turned to the Plastics Additives Business of Milliken Chemical Company. As the global leader in clarifying and colouring agents for polypropylene, Milliken’s solution was a cutting-edge colour technology currently used in a wide range of important global market segments: ClearTint^® Colorant.

ClearTint Colorant is an ideal fit for Smartboxes’ new in-flight product. This unique class of Milliken materials is specifically designed for use in polypropylene and delivers the brightest, cleanest, and most transparent colours available. They can be used as light tints to mask residual haze, or for deep rich shades not possible with traditional pigments and dyestuffs. And the fact that the Milliken colourants are also non-toxic and contain no heavy metals – and are agency approved for use in food-contact applications – means that they are safe for kids, another key Smartboxes requirement.

“Our clients need practical, functional solutions that work perfectly in very demanding environments - the form and visual impact of the finished product must be better than anything else on the market” said Andrew Farish, Creative Director of Smartboxes who count British Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Emirates among their clients. “Add kids into the equation and the more colourful the product to enhance the design, the better, and in the final analysis, Milliken’s Plastics Additives Business ClearTint^® Colorant stood out as the best solution for our requirements” Farish said.

Smartboxes selected Milliken’s Plastics Additives Business for Milliken’s expertise in matching their colourants to the various grades of polypropylene Smartboxes use. “Interesting materials and colourants such as ClearTint are useful when you are trying to create imaginative product combinations as they can complement your 3D design work and add a valuable 4th dimension to the look and feel of a solution.” said Farish.

ClearTint Colorants are Milliken’s latest generation of products that are widely regarded as the best option for maintaining clarity in polypropylene applications. They provide the broadest range of colours and shades available, allowing applications moulded from polypropylene to rival the aesthetic appeal of higher cost plastics. In this way, the technical and physical property benefits of polypropylene can be exploited while enhancing aesthetics. Further, ClearTint Colorants reduce shrinkage and warpage in the moulded part and do not disturb the outer surface of these parts like competitive pigments c