Packing jam, honey and pickle jars with honeycomb paper

A broken jar of pickle never loses just one jar. The oil soaks into the carton, stains the labels on every other jar, and leaves a smell the customer remembers longer than the taste.

To ship food in glass jars, do two separate jobs. First make each jar leak-proof: a tight lid, tape or a shrink band over it, and the jar sealed in its own plastic bag. Then protect the glass: two to three turns of honeycomb paper, extra paper over the lid and under the base, and a box where the jars stand upright and never touch each other or the walls.

In my view, most jar packing goes wrong when people mix up those two jobs.

We make honeycomb paper in Jaipur, so I will be clear about its limits from the start. It is very good at the second job. It does nothing for the first.

What actually goes wrong with food jars in transit?

Four things, and only one of them is broken glass.

1. The glass cracks. Usually at the base or the shoulder, and usually because a jar hit another jar or the box wall.
2. The lid works loose. Continuous vibration on a delivery truck turns a screw cap a little at a time, and a lid that was "tight enough" in the kitchen starts to weep.
3. The contents travel. Jam and honey are sticky. Pickle in oil creeps through any gap. Once it is out, it reaches everything.
4. The label scuffs. Nobody returns a jar for this, but a rubbed label looks second-hand on a gift.

The first one is a cushioning problem. The other three are sealing and fitting problems.

Step 1: make the jar leak-proof before you think about cushioning

Honeycomb paper is paper with rows of cuts in it. It is full of holes by design.

If the lid leaks, the paper will absorb a little and pass the rest on.

So the leak barrier has to come first.

1. Close the lid to the specified torque of your filling line, not by feel. If you fill by hand, one person should close every jar in a batch.
2. Add a second closure. A heat-shrink band over the lid and neck, a strip of tape across the lid, or an induction seal under the cap if your line has one.
3. Seal each jar in its own plastic bag.

The couriers say the same. The DHL Express packing guide, An Essential Packing Guide for Express Shipments (valid from 23 July 2026), asks for liquids in leak-free containers, sealed in a plastic bag, inside a strong double wall box. For semi-liquid, greasy or strong-smelling goods, it asks you to tape the closure and wrap the item in grease-resistant paper first. Pickles and chutneys fall squarely in that group.

How much honeycomb paper does a jar need?

For most food jars, two to three turns of honeycomb paper is the right starting point. Put an extra fold over the lid and another under the base, because those are the ends that take the knocks when a box is dropped flat.

The table shows where we would start a new customer. It is not a test result, so run your own drop check before you lock it in.

Pull the paper so the cells open fully before it touches the jar. Half-opened honeycomb is thin and gives you less cushion than the roll suggests. Our guide to choosing a GSM explains the grades in more detail.

Brown kraft looks right on a farm-shop jar. If the jar carries a printed label you want the customer to see first, white wrap shows it off better. We make both, and the protection is the same.

Step 2: box it so glass never meets glass

The box matters as much as the wrap. A perfectly wrapped jar still breaks if it can travel 5 cm and hit its neighbour.

1. Stand every jar upright.
2. Keep a gap between the jars and the box walls. The same DHL guide asks for at least 6 cm between the item and every outer wall and corner of the box for general parcels. For glass I would not go below that.
3. Separate jars with a cardboard divider or a thick roll of honeycomb between them.
4. Fill the space left over with void fill, not with more wrap. Our post on using honeycomb wrap and void fill together covers the order.
5. Close the box and shake it. If you hear glass, open it again.

Worked example: a three-jar gift box

Say a small preserve maker ships a gift set of three 340 g jars, around 40 orders a week. These numbers are only an example.

Each jar gets a shrink band and its own bag. Each bag is wrapped in two turns of 80 GSM honeycomb, with a fold over the lid. The three jars stand in a row, with a tight roll of honeycomb between each pair, in a box that leaves a clear gap on every side. Void fill tops it up.

Before the first week of orders, the maker drops one packed box onto a hard floor from about waist height. Once flat on its base, once on a long edge, once on a corner. Then they open it and look. No cracks, no wet bag, no loose lid. That one sacrificed box costs less than one angry review.

It is the cheapest test in packaging.

Does the honeycomb paper touch the food?

No. The jar is closed and the paper touches only glass and lid.

That is why honeycomb paper works for packed food jars.

It is a different question if someone wants to put honeycomb paper directly against unwrapped food. I would not, and I explain why in can honeycomb paper touch food.

When honeycomb paper is not enough on its own

I would rather say this plainly.

1. Big catering jars of several kilos need a moulded or corrugated insert. Paper cells crush under that weight.
2. Pallet loads to a distributor are a different job. Jars there should travel in cartons with dividers, and honeycomb only fills the gaps.
3. Products that must stay chilled need an insulated pack. Paper is not a cooler.

For sauces and oils in tall bottles, see our separate guide to shipping olive oil and sauce bottles.

We test our own paper for strength and dispenser use before it leaves the plant, but your jars and your courier are the real examination.

Send us your jar sizes and a photo of the box you use today, through our contact page. We will suggest a width and grade, and we can send a sample roll so you can run that drop test yourself.