Compartment Tray with Lid
The lidded compartment tray is the format that meal-prep businesses, bento services and premium takeaway have converged on.
View tray & get pricing →Compartment & Meal Trays
Corrugated Lunch Trays
- Single or divided
- Lid compatible
- Full-colour on E-flute
The lunch tray sits between a takeaway container and a proper meal tray. It is deep enough to hold a full portion, flat enough to eat from at a desk, and rigid enough to be carried in one hand from a counter to a table without folding.
It has become the default format for meal-prep businesses, office catering rounds and school lunch programmes, largely because it prints well enough to carry a brand and still costs a fraction of a rigid container.
- Single bay or two to four compartments
- Prints in full colour on E-flute — good enough for a retail-facing brand
- Optional fitted lid or film seal
- Sized to fit delivery bags and school serving trolleys
Pricing starts from $0.30 per tray
The unit price depends on the size, board, printing, finishing, quantity and delivery country, so every quote is worked out for your specification rather than taken from a list.
Get pricing for corrugated lunch trays
Send the size and the run length. We reply with pricing, material options and a production date — usually within one working day.
01 — Specification
Specification at a glance
Every element below is set when we quote. Nothing here is a fixed catalogue entry — if a line does not match what you need, say so and we will change it.
- Layout
- Open bay, or 2–4 compartments
- Flute
- E-flute standard for print quality
- Depth
- Typically 45–70 mm depending on the meal
- Closure
- Open, fitted lid, or rim profile for film sealing
- Liner
- Grease and moisture resistant face for hot or sauced meals
- Up to full four-colour process
02 — Build the spec
Design this tray in five steps
The same five questions we would ask on a phone call, with the corrugated lunch tray already selected. You get a properly detailed brief at the end, which is what makes a first quote accurate rather than approximate.
Prefer the full builder with a live sketch? Open the tray designer.
03 — In detail
Specifying a lunch tray for a real menu
The sequence matters — designing the graphics before the structure is the usual expensive mistake.
-
Portion the meal physically
Plate the actual meal on a table and measure the space it takes. Menu descriptions do not tell you how much room a portion of rice and curry needs.
-
Decide on compartments
A single bay is cheaper and holds more. Compartments keep a wet element off a dry one. If your menu has both, the compartments pay for themselves in customer complaints avoided.
-
Check the delivery bag
Measure the insulated bags your couriers use and work out how many trays fit per bag. Sizing to the bag is free at the design stage and impossible afterwards.
-
Choose the closure
A fitted lid stacks and protects. A film seal is the only option that reliably contains liquid. Open with a band is cheapest and fine for immediate service.
-
Then design
On the dieline we supply, so the brand does not land across a fold or under the lid overlap.
Three markets, three different trays
Meal prep and subscription
Needs a reliable seal, a flat surface for a label with nutrition and reheating information, and a shape that stacks in a domestic fridge. Print is doing brand work because the customer sees the same tray several times a week.
Office and corporate catering
Needs to look composed on a boardroom table and be openable without a knife. Presentation matters more than sealing, because it is eaten immediately. Compartments keep a salad away from a dressing.
School meals
Needs to be quick to fill on a servery line, to fit the trolley, and to survive being carried by a child. Compartment sizes are usually smaller and the tray footprint is driven by the serving fixture. See food trays for school meals.
Details that separate a good lunch tray from a cheap one
- A grease and moisture resistant liner, so a warm sauced meal does not soften the base by the time it is eaten.
- Compartment walls tall enough for the actual portion volume rather than nominally divided.
- A flat, unobstructed panel on the lid or the long side for a nutrition and allergen label.
- A footprint that fits both your delivery bag and a standard domestic fridge shelf.
- Enough rigidity that the tray can be held flat in one hand while the lid is removed with the other.
Print quality on E-flute is better than people expect
The assumption that corrugated cannot carry a proper brand comes from experience with heavy B-flute shipping cases. E-flute is a different proposition — the flutes are fine enough that four-colour process holds well, and a lunch tray printed on it does not look like a shipping box.
That matters commercially. A meal-prep customer sees your tray several times a week; a corporate catering client sees it in front of colleagues. Both are situations where the packaging is doing brand work, and E-flute is good enough to do it.
04 — Nearby
Trays that work alongside this one
Chosen because operators who buy the corrugated lunch tray usually need one of these in the same order, not because they happen to sit in the same category.
Bagasse School Meal Tray
School meal trays have a specification nobody else has to meet.
View tray & get pricing →
Corrugated Food Tray
Corrugated trays exist for one reason: a loaded tray that has to be picked up from the middle without folding in half.
View tray & get pricing →
Rigid Cafeteria Tray
A cafeteria tray carries an entire meal — main, sides, dessert, cutlery, sometimes a drink — from a servery to a table, held by one person who is also c…
View tray & get pricing →05 — Questions
Corrugated Lunch Tray questions
Should I choose a single bay or compartments?
Compartments if any part of your meal is wet and any part is meant to stay crisp. A single bay if the meal is homogeneous — a curry, a pasta, a stew. Compartments cost slightly more and prevent the most common complaint in meal delivery.
Will a corrugated lunch tray hold a hot meal?
With a moisture-resistant liner, for the length of a normal delivery. Prolonged steam softens board, so tell us the temperature the meal goes in at and how long it travels, and we will specify for it.
Can these trays be sealed with film?
Yes, if we build a compatible rim profile. Tell us the sealing machine and tooling you use — the rim has to match your die, so this has to be designed in rather than added later.
Are lunch trays microwave safe?
Plain board with no metallic ink generally tolerates a short reheat, but liners and coatings vary. We will state the exact construction of what you order so you can test it in your own equipment before making any claim to customers.
What size fits a standard delivery bag?
It depends on the bag. Measure the internal dimensions of the bags your couriers use and tell us how many trays you want per bag. Sizing to that is free at design stage and expensive to fix afterwards.
Can I print full colour on a lunch tray?
Yes, on E-flute the result is genuinely good — close enough to folding carton that customers will not read it as a shipping box. That is the reason most meal-prep brands specify E-flute rather than B.
Do the trays stack in a fridge?
With a fitted lid, yes, which matters for meal-prep customers storing several days of food. Without a lid they do not stack safely. If your customers store trays at home, plan on lids.
Where does the nutrition label go?
On a flat panel — usually the lid or the long side. Decide this before artwork, because a label placed over a fold will not sit flat and will peel. We mark the label area on the dieline.
Can you supply the tray and the lid printed differently?
Yes. They are separate components with separate tooling. A common pattern is branding on the lid and practical information — reheating, allergens, storage — on the tray itself.
Before you order, read
- Food Tray Size Guide — What tray sizes mean, and how to pick one from your own portions.
- Food Tray Printing Guide — Colours, costs, substrates and proofs — what buyers need to know.
Who buys this tray
Ready to price the corrugated lunch tray?
Send the dimensions, the quantity and the country you want it delivered to. We come back with a full quote — material, print, finishing, freight and a production date.