Pizza Time: pizza boxes for a restaurant network since 2020

Pizza Time has bought its pizza boxes from Bas Packaging since 2020, without a break. We make three box sizes and around 3 million packs a year in total, all delivered to a single point: O’Depot du Chef, the chain’s contracted partner in Amiens, northern France, which supplies the restaurants in France. The chain’s restaurant in Dakar, Senegal, is also supplied via France.

If you buy packaging for a multi-site operator, the useful part of this case is not the logo but the mechanics: which boxes, which route, which markings, and where a model like this reaches its limits.

What do we make for Pizza Time?

Pizza boxes in three sizes: 29 × 29 × 4 cm, 33 × 33 × 4 cm and 40 × 40 × 4 cm. The depth stays the same; only the footprint grows with the pizza. The boxes are kraft board, printed in green with the line “it’s Pizza Time”, and carry a size panel, JUNIOR or SENIOR. Three fixed sizes mean three cutting dies and one artwork set that is signed off once. For Pizza Time we also print the red and white “Potatoes for ever” potato box, whose printed sheets appear further down, at the print check.

Every pack we produce for Pizza Time is certified for food contact and complies with the relevant EU rules. For a box that holds a hot, oily pizza, that is the first thing a quality manager checks. If you are choosing sizes for your own range, our guide to pizza box sizes walks through the method.

How do the boxes reach the restaurants, as far as Dakar?

Through one address. We ship to O’Depot du Chef in Amiens, the contracted partner through which Pizza Time organises its packaging supply, and the restaurants are supplied from there. A restaurant therefore never orders from us; its boxes come from Amiens. The boxes for the Dakar restaurant also travel via France.

For us as the manufacturer, this makes planning simpler: we plan for one buyer with pooled demand instead of many small orders. For the chain, it means restaurants do not have to source their own packaging, and deliveries arrive at a single goods-in point.

What has to be on the box besides the logo?

France requires packaging to tell consumers how to sort it, using the Triman logo and the Info-tri panel. On Pizza Time boxes both are part of the artwork from the outset and printed directly on the box rather than added later as stickers. The boxes therefore meet French labelling rules as well as food-contact requirements, and the partner in Amiens has no separate labels to manage. If you also sell into the UK, the same principle applies to whatever marks your market requires: put them in the artwork file.

Before the production run, we check the printed sheets. On the table sit a Pantone guide for matching the colours and a linen tester for checking screens and register. The aim is that every delivery looks the same in the restaurants. How a print approval is built, and which sample is binding, is covered in our article on print approval for packaging.

What do lead times and volumes look like?

Standard production for Pizza Time orders takes 20 working days. Transport to France then averages 8 working days. With around 3 million packs a year, fixed sizes and approved artwork, every order follows the same path. The box itself carries the chain’s own line about its network: “+ de 60 restaurants pour vous servir”.

This model has limits. With 20 working days of production and 8 working days in transit on average, it is not designed for rush top-ups. It relies on orders placed ahead and on a central distributor such as the partner in Amiens. A chain without a central partner, wanting every site delivered directly, would need a different arrangement, such as call-off stock or shorter order intervals.

What should you ask a supplier before a similar project?

If you plan to supply a restaurant network from abroad with printed boxes, settle five points in writing before the first order: which address receives the goods and who distributes from there, from which date the production time is counted, which mandatory marks of the destination country belong in the artwork, which food-contact documents come with each delivery, and how long transport takes on average. For Pizza Time these points are settled, which is why supply has run without interruption since 2020. Our standard build is shown on the page for custom printed pizza boxes.