Dish pack boxes
Researched and written by Ashley Davis · Reviewed by Emily Johnson · Last reviewed August 2026
A dish pack, also called a dish barrel, is a double-walled box made for crockery and glassware, typically 18 by 18 by 28 inches at around 5 cubic feet. The second wall is the entire point. A single-wall box passes a side impact straight through to the contents; a double wall absorbs it in the corrugation before it reaches the plates.
Why does the second wall matter?
Because crockery does not break from being dropped, it breaks from the shock that arrives afterwards. Corrugated cardboard absorbs energy by crushing, and a second layer gives the impact somewhere to go before it reaches a plate on edge. This is why a dish pack is worth buying when almost every other box can be found free: nothing free is double-walled at that size.
What does a dish pack hold?
The crockery of a typical four-person kitchen fits in one: dinner plates, side plates, bowls, mugs and a set of glasses, with paper between every layer. Filled properly it is heavy, and that is normal. Filled to the top it is too heavy to lift safely, and the weight is what causes the drop the double wall was bought to survive.
When is a free box a real substitute?
For glasses, yes. A liquor store box was built to carry bottles and already has cell dividers, which does a job no plain box does and which a dish pack does not do on its own. For plates, no. Plates need the impact absorption rather than the compartments, and a single-wall grocery box gives neither. Use both: liquor boxes for glassware, a dish pack for plates.
How do you pack one?
Two inches of crushed paper at the bottom, plates on edge in rows with paper between each row, heaviest at the bottom and lightest at the top, and every gap filled so nothing shifts. Close it and tilt it gently. If anything moves, open it and add paper. A dish pack that rattles has lost the advantage its second wall gave it.