A packaging plant that prints, converts and assembles on one site
Kestrow Packaging has made paper packaging in Tangxia, Dongguan since 2009. We started with one second-hand press and twelve people. Today 260 people work across three buildings, and most of our first customers still order from us.
How we got here
The company was founded by two prepress technicians who had spent ten years preparing files for other printers. They kept seeing the same problem: boxes were printed in one factory, laminated in a second and assembled in a third, and nobody owned the result.
So the plan from the first day was to keep every step under one roof. Die-cutting came in 2011, the rigid box lines in 2014 and the corrugated litho-laminating line in 2018. Each was added when an existing customer asked for it.
Inside the plant
Print hall
Two six-colour offset presses run in one hall, so a job can move between them without a colour shift.
Ink room
Spot colours are mixed in-house and each batch is logged against the job.
Press delivery
Sheets are pulled and measured against the signed sample every 500.
Finished goods
Export cartons are palletised and held by order until the container is booked.
Equipment
| Offset printing | Two 6-colour presses with inline coating, sheet size up to 720 × 1020 mm |
| Die-cutting | Three automatic die-cutters and one hot foil stamping press |
| Rigid boxes | Four automatic wrapping lines and a hand-assembly floor of 80 stations |
| Folding cartons | Two folder-gluers running up to 300 m per minute |
| Corrugated | One litho-laminator and one flexo printer-slotter |
| Paper bags | Two reel-fed bag machines and a hand-finishing line |
| Testing | Edge crush, burst, drop and rub testers, spectrophotometer, light booth |
How quality is checked
- Incoming paper and board are weighed and checked for moisture before they reach the press.
- Colour is measured against your approved sample every 500 sheets.
- The first 20 pieces off each converting line are assembled by hand and signed off by a quality inspector.
- Finished goods are sampled to AQL 2.5 and photographed. You receive the report before the balance is due.
Third-party inspectors are welcome at any stage, and we will book a meeting room and a translator for them.
The people you will deal with
Every account has one sales engineer who speaks English and stays with the order from quote to shipment. Behind them are a prepress team of nine, who turn your artwork into print-ready dielines, and a quality team of fourteen. Spanish and Arabic speaking staff handle accounts in Latin America and the Gulf.