Custom Front Cut Out Display Trays
Custom front cut out display trays from 100 — counter trays whose front panel is cut low or shaped so the row of product inside is visible and easy to take, printed in full color and shipped flat to fold at the store.
An open front so the product does the selling
- Board
- SBS cardstock 20–24 pt, or E flute corrugated for heavy rows; kraft option
- Front
- Low straight, curved, angled sides or tear-away panel
- Full color inside back wall and outside faces; matte or gloss
Order online
Order front cut out display trays
Starting from $1.20 per unit
Printed to your artwork or plain, sold in runs of 100 up to 5,000 units per product online. Freight to the US, UK, Canada and Australia is inside the price.
How an online order runs
- Add the units you needThen check out with your delivery address. Add other products to the same order on the way.
- A digital proof comes backLaid on the dieline, before anything prints. Change it as often as you need.
- Pay once you approve itPay by PayPal invoice or bank transfer after you approve your digital proof, or cash on delivery in the US and Canada.
- We make it and ship it deliveredYour delivery date is confirmed with the proof, against the spec and your fill date. Freight and customs are handled on the way to you.
Another size, board or finish, or more than 5,000 units? Send the spec for a price instead. Freight by market and our terms cover delivery and remakes.
Get a price for Front Cut Out Display Trays
Send the size and quantity — we reply the same working day with a price, a dieline and a date. Artwork optional at this stage.
- Free dielineThe flat drawing comes with the quote, before you commit.
- Proof before pressNothing is printed until you have seen it laid on the dieline.
- Die kept for reordersTooling is paid once. Every reorder skips straight to press.
- Quoted in four marketsUS, UK, Canada and Australia, in the delivery currency.
How the front is cut
The tear-away version doubles as the shipping carton, which suits products sent to stores in the tray they sell from.
| Low straight front | Front wall cut to about a third of the height; the simplest and strongest |
|---|---|
| Curved or scalloped front | A shaped cut that frames the product and draws the eye |
| Angled sides | Side walls slope from back to front so the row tilts toward the shopper |
| Tear-away front | A perforated panel that ships closed and is torn off at the store |
Sized to the product row, not to a stock tray
The tray is drawn around how many units sit across, how many deep and how tall each one is. Bars, tubes and sachets stand on end; jars and tins sit in a single layer; small boxes stack two or three high. We leave a little room either side so the last unit comes out as easily as the first. Our counter display boxes for checkout areas cover taller builds with a back header.
Board for the weight on the counter
- SBS paperboard for light products such as lip balms, sachets and cards.
- E flute corrugated for jars, tins and anything that weighs more than a few pounds in total.
- Kraft for natural products and farm-shop style counters.
- A double-thickness base where heavy units sit in one layer.
Printing every face a shopper sees
With the front cut away, the inside of the back wall becomes the most visible surface in the tray, so it is printed with the brand or a product message. The outside of the side walls, which shoppers see from an angle, gets a second message or the price-point cue. A pop-up header card can be added along the back for a store that allows taller displays. Other display formats are collected in our range of retail display boxes.
Send the product, how many per tray and the counter space the store gives you; that sets the footprint.
Front Cut Out Display Trays — specification
The rows that are specific to this build first, then what applies to every job we run. Anything not listed is a question, not a limit — send the brief.
This build
- Board
- SBS cardstock 20–24 pt, or E flute corrugated for heavy rows; kraft option
- Front
- Low straight, curved, angled sides or tear-away panel
- Full color inside back wall and outside faces; matte or gloss
- Header
- Optional pop-up header card along the back
- Assembly
- Ships flat; locks together without glue at the store
- Minimum
- 100 trays per design
On every job
- Print process
- Flexo in one to six colors, printed on the outer face only and before any lining goes on.
- Color
- Food-safe inks throughout. Kraft mutes color; a white board or liner is needed for anything photographic.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1 mm, and fit confirmed by filling a plain sample from your own kitchen or line.
- Tooling
- A cutting die per size, kept. Molded pulp needs a tool per shape, which is a longer lead and a larger one-off.
- Food contact
- Every board food-contact grade, with grease resistance built into the sheet and never a PFAS treatment.
- Sustainability
- Aqueous linings and unlined boards repulp with ordinary paper. PE-lined cups need cup collection, and we say which you have.
- Artwork
- Vector PDF or AI, 3 mm bleed, 4 mm safe area, fonts outlined. We check every file and send a proof before press.
- Dieline
- Supplied free with the quote, before you commit. Yours whether or not you order.
- Sample
- A plain unprinted sample at the finished size on request, for fit and construction.
- Reorders
- Skip the tooling and go straight to press at a lower unit price.
- Lead time
- Quoted with the price against your fill date rather than promised before we have seen the spec.
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia — priced in the delivery currency, freight included.
Boards and films we build front cut out display trays on
Food packaging is chosen for what the food does to it: grease, steam, heat and time. Every board here is food-contact grade, and none of them uses a PFAS treatment for grease resistance.
Food-grade virgin board
Bleached board made for direct food contact. Clean, bright, no recycled fiber and no mineral-oil risk from recovered paper.
14–24ptGrease-resistant board
Resistance built into the sheet rather than sprayed on. Holds fries, pastry and butter without darkening. PFAS-free.
16–24ptPE-lined cupstock
Board with a polyethylene film for hot and cold liquid. Microwave-safe for reheating; recycled only where cup collection exists.
260–350gsmAqueous-lined cupstock
A water-based lining instead of PE. Repulpable in ordinary paper recycling in more places, and compostable; a slightly shorter hold time.
260–320gsmGreaseproof and glassine
Dense, calendered paper that resists fat through the fiber. Wraps, liners and interleaves; breathable, so pastry stays crisp.
30–55gsmFood-grade corrugated
E and B flute with a food-contact liner, vented where steam has to leave. Pizza, catering and anything hot and heavy.
E and B fluteMolded pulp and bagasse
Fiber pressed into a shape. Holds heat, resists grease with no lining, composts, and takes only an embossed or one-color mark.
Molded to shapeRecycled board
Post-consumer fiber. Used for outers, sleeves and anything that does not touch food directly — not for direct contact.
Non-contact onlyNot sure which? Say what goes in it and where it is sold — the material follows from that. Our notes on recycled, recyclable and compostable cover which claims each stock can honestly carry.
- 01
Send what you have
A dimension, a photograph beside a ruler, or the product itself. No technical drawing needed — that part is ours.
- 02
We quote and draw
A price, a dieline and a date come back together. If a different build would suit the product better, that is in the reply too.
- 03
Approve the dieline
The flat drawing is yours to check: which panel is the front, where the folds fall, how deep the cavity really is.
- 04
Artwork on the dieline
You place your design on the flat we sent, or we place it for you, and you see a proof before anything goes to press.
- 05
A sample if you want one
A plain unprinted sample at the finished size shows fit and construction — the things a drawing cannot.
- 06
Cut, printed, shipped
The die is cut once and kept, so every reorder skips the tooling and goes straight to press at a lower unit price.
Format
Vector PDF or AI where possible. Raster artwork at 300dpi at final size, in CMYK.
Bleed
3 mm past every trim line, so a fraction of drift on the cutter never leaves a white edge.
Safe area
Keep type and anything important 4 mm inside the cut and away from every fold.
Color
Convert to CMYK before sending. Uncoated stock prints lighter; a spot color is the only exact match.
Fonts
Outline them or supply the files. A missing font substitutes silently and the proof will not match.
Barcodes
On a light, matte, unvarnished patch with the quiet zone clear — a code on gloss fails the scanner.
Not set up that way? Send it anyway — fixing a file is a short conversation, and we check every one before press. Our guide to preparing print files covers each point.
Food finishes are limited by what may touch food, and that is the point.
Food-safe inks
Printed on the outer face only. Every food pack we make uses them, laminated or not.
Uncoated kraft
No coating at all. Breathable, so pastry stays crisp, and it takes one or two colors.
Aqueous varnish
Scuff resistance without a plastic film, so the pack still repulps.
Molded emboss
A logo pressed into pulp or bagasse. No ink, nothing to rub off, and it survives grease.
Grease-resistant face
Not a finish you can see. It is in the sheet, it is PFAS-free, and it is why the print stays clean.
Matte lamination
Available on outers and sleeves that never touch food — a cake box lid, a carrier, a gift sleeve.
Not sure which suits the shelf it sells from? Say where the product is sold and we suggest one — our notes on specialty finishes show them on real boxes.
Sizing food packaging around a portion, hot: front cut out display trays
Food is sized by serving, not by dimensions, and it is served hot, heaped and in a hurry. Send us the portion — or better, the box you use now with the food in it — and we size to how it is actually filled.
- Portion, heaped
- Fries, popcorn and salad are served above the rim. A box sized to a level fill looks mean and spills in a bag.
- Lid clearance
- Enough that a loaded burger or a topped cake does not touch the lid. This is the single most common complaint about a food box.
- Venting
- Hot food steams. Vents in the lid keep pastry and fries crisp; a sealed box is right only for cold food.
- Grease path
- Where the fat sits decides the board. Say if the food is fried, buttered or sauced, and whether it is held for minutes or an hour.
- Stacking in a bag
- Delivery boxes are stacked five high on a bike. The lid has to hold the box above it off the food below.
- Sample fill
- A plain box filled from your kitchen settles the size in one try, and we send one before the run.
Not sure your numbers are right? Send the product dimensions rather than the box dimensions and we work the box out — the full method is in our guide to measuring for a box.
Interactive · five steps · no sign-up
Build your Front Cut Out Display Trays in 3D
Pick a shape, type a size, choose a board and a finish. The preview on the left redraws as you go, and the spec lands with us exactly as you set it.
Frequently asked questions
Got a question about front cut out display trays? The answers below cover what we get asked most. If yours is not here, send it with a brief, message us on WhatsApp, or call +1 503-461-4788 — we reply the same working day.
What is a front cut out display tray?
A counter tray whose front wall is cut low or shaped so the product inside is visible and easy to pick up.
Can a front cut out display tray ship as its own carton?
Yes, with a tear-away front. It ships closed and the perforated panel is torn off at the store.
How do you size a front cut out display tray?
From the number of units across and deep and the size of one unit. We leave room so the last one lifts out easily.
Are front cut out display trays strong enough for jars?
Yes, in E flute corrugated with a reinforced base. Paperboard trays suit lighter items such as balms and sachets.
Is the inside of a front cut out display tray printed?
It should be. With the front cut away, the inside back wall is the first surface a shopper sees.
Can a front cut out display tray have a header card?
Yes. A pop-up header along the back adds height and a message where the store allows it.
Do front cut out display trays need glue to assemble?
No. They ship flat and lock together by hand with tabs and folds.
What products suit a front cut out display tray?
Bars, lip balms, sachets, small tins, cards and small boxed items sold near a checkout.
Can the front of a display tray be curved?
Yes. A curved or scalloped cut frames the product and is drawn to the height of the units inside.
Can front cut out display trays be kraft?
Yes. Kraft board or kraft corrugated suits natural products and farm-shop counters.
How many front cut out display trays can I order?
From 100 trays per design, with the dieline sent alongside the quote.
Same range
