An egg carton (or an egg box, which is the English term) is a carton designed for carrying and transporting whole eggs. These cartons have a dimpled form in which each dimple accommodates an individual egg and isolates that egg from eggs in adjacent dimples. This structure helps protect eggs against stresses exerted during transportation and storage by absorbing a lot of shock and limiting the incidents of fracture to the fragile egg shells. An egg carton can be made of various materials, including foamed plastics such as Styrofoam, clear plastic or may be manufactured from recycled paper and molded pulp by means of a mechanized Papier-mâché process.
Before egg cartons, eggs were carried in egg baskets.
An 'egg crate mattress', while following a similar form, is not used for egg transport. It is a light weight camping mattress which makes use of the dimpled structure to distribute and cushion human weight. This foam structure is also occasionally used in packaging to dampen impact of sensitive material during travel.
Similarly, acoustic foam tiles which help in sound proofing and the limitation of acoustic resonance have a similar form to egg crates. Egg crate mattresses are occasionally used as an inexpensive but poor substitute to acoustic foam.
New egg packaging designs have since been pioneered, to help egg producers and marketers promote "premium eggs". Premium eggs are often produced with greater effort to provide many health benefits, and need attractive egg packaging to capture the customers attention on the retail shelf.
The egg carton was invented in 1911 by newspaper editor Joseph Coyle of Smithers, British Columbia, to solve a dispute between a local farmer and hotel owner over the farmer's eggs often being delivered broken. The egg carton "Box" was further developed by H.G.Bennett (Riseley UK) during the 1950s and became the norm for egg transportation during this period.
Standard egg cartons are 12, but they can come in a variety of sizes:
Cartons
Trays
Trays are usually used to store fresh eggs from farms or at farmers markets. Plastic egg trays are also used by egg processors to wash and sanitize eggs. A cardboard sleeve or additional trays are used to protect eggs when using a tray format.