Obsolete Printed Cartons: What an Artwork Change Writes Off, and How to Size Print Runs

Printed cartons and labels are the only raw material in your store that a single notification or brand decision can turn into scrap. When the artwork changes, every carton printed in the old design is worth what the kabadiwala pays for board, and the bill is set months earlier, when someone ordered a big run to hit the converter's minimum. In the illustrative plant below, one artwork change writes off about ₹16 lakh of cartons, and most of it sits in slow SKUs and at the converter, not in the fast movers.

By the Mama Editorial Team. Mama scopes camera and floor-visibility projects for Indian factories. Last verified: 13 October 2026, against PIB releases from the Department of Consumer Affairs (September 2025 and November 2021) and the Ministry of Health (June and July 2024), the ICAI Expert Advisory Committee's reading of AS 2, and the CGST Act as published by CBIC. All ₹ figures are illustrative assumptions, not benchmarks.

Key takeaways

• Printed packaging has an unprinted expiry date: the next change in the law, the MRP, the pack size or the brand.
• Regulators usually give a run-out window, and it is short and fixed. After the GST rate revision of 22 September 2025, old packaging could be used until 31 March 2026 or until exhausted, whichever is earlier. Old-declaration stock left after the window cannot be used as printed.
• The loss sits in slow SKUs. Fast movers use up their stock inside the window; slow SKUs ordered at the converter's minimum carry a year or more of cover.
• The cheapest unit price is not the cheapest run. Once you put a probability on the artwork changing, the best print run is often half of what the MOQ pushes you towards.
• Cameras can show which pallets in the packaging store have not moved. They cannot tell you which artwork version is on them. That still needs the ERP and a version code on every pallet.

Why printed packaging dies before it is used

A reel of kraft can become any box. A printed mono carton holds one SKU in one declaration, so anything that changes the declaration retires it. In Indian FMCG and food supply the triggers fall into four groups.

Legal Metrology declarations. The 2021 amendment to the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules simplified the mandatory MRP declaration (in Indian currency, inclusive of all taxes), introduced a unit sale price on pre-packed commodities for retail sale, changed the date declaration to the month and year of manufacture, and omitted Rule 5, which prescribed standard pack sizes in Schedule II, with the changes due from 1 April 2022. Most of those touched the printed declaration panel of retail packs.

Price and tax changes. When GST rates were revised from 22 September 2025, the Department of Consumer Affairs issued an advisory, using the Central Government's powers under Rule 33 of the same rules, to allow old packaging printed before the revision to be used up to 31 March 2026 or until such stock is exhausted, whichever is earlier, with the MRP corrected by stamping, stickering or online printing. That is a generous window. It still has an end date, and stock that outlives it cannot carry the old declaration.

FSSAI label rules. In June 2024 FSSAI told food businesses to remove "100% fruit juice" claims from reconstituted juice labels with immediate effect and to exhaust all existing pre-printed packaging materials before 1 September 2024. The next one is in the pipeline: in July 2024 the Food Authority approved a proposal to show total sugar, salt and saturated fat in bold and a larger font on packaged food labels, and a draft amendment published on 18 February 2025 (comments until 20 April 2025) covers added sugar, saturated fat and sodium. It is still a draft as far as we can find; check FSSAI's final notifications before your next big run.

Commercial changes. A brand refresh, new pack size, new barcode or a buyer asking for a different panel. These come with no grace period; the window is whatever marketing gives you.

In every case the window is set by someone else, and the stock by your last purchase order.

The MOQ trap: how a sensible order becomes dead stock

Every carton or label run carries a fixed cost: plates or cylinders, a cutting die, make-ready sheets and press time before the first good sheet. Spread over a big run it almost vanishes from the unit price; over a small one it dominates. (For what make-ready actually costs the converter, see cameras in packaging and printing plants.) So the converter quotes a minimum, and the buyer orders at or above it.

For a fast SKU this is harmless. For a slow one it quietly builds months of cover:

1. The minimum is set by the press, not by your demand. If the run is 50,000 cartons and the SKU uses 3,000 a month, you have just bought 16 months of stock.
2. Variants multiply the problem. Every flavour, pack size, export market and customer-specific panel is a separate artwork with its own minimum.
3. Call-off stock sits outside your store. Many converters print the full run and hold part of it for you. If the purchase order or the agreement commits you to take it, it is your obsolescence risk even though you cannot see it.
4. Nobody owns the run-out. Purchase buys to the minimum, marketing changes the design, stores finds out last.

A converter that printed ahead for a customer faces the same loss from the other side: finished goods nobody else can buy.

Worked example: one artwork change, in rupees

Assumptions (illustrative). A mid-size food brand with 30 carton SKUs and an average carton cost of ₹4.50. A regulatory change gives three months to use up old packaging. Printed board scrap fetches ₹12 a kg and each carton weighs 25 g. Stock at the date of the change is set by past ordering at the converter's minimum, as below.

Three things stand out.

1. Fast movers cost nothing. Eighteen of thirty SKUs ran out inside the window.
2. Converter-held stock is a quarter of the loss, and the easiest line to forget because it never reached your store.
3. The write-off equals about four months of carton spend on the twelve medium and slow SKUs (₹4.14 lakh a month). That is the real price of the "cheaper" minimum.

The books and the tax. Under AS 2, materials held for production are not written down below cost if the finished products they go into are expected to be sold at or above cost. A carton that can no longer legally be used goes into no finished product, so expect your auditor to ask for a write-down to scrap value; agree the treatment with your CA. On GST, section 17(5)(h) of the CGST Act blocks input credit on goods "lost, stolen, destroyed, written off", so take your CA's view on the credit before destroying stock. The same question for finished goods is covered in finished goods that don't move.

Sizing the print run when the artwork can change

The textbook economic order quantity balances setup cost against carrying cost and assumes the item lasts forever. Printed packaging does not, so add one term: the chance, per year, that the artwork changes and whatever you hold becomes scrap.

Best run ≈ √(2 × annual use × setup cost ÷ (variable cost per carton × (carrying rate + yearly chance of artwork change)))

This simplifies (it assumes you hold half a run on average when the change lands), but it beats leaving the risk out.

Illustrative slow SKU. Annual use 36,000 cartons. Setup cost ₹22,000 per run (plates, die, make-ready), variable cost ₹4.06 a carton, so a 50,000 run comes out at ₹4.50. Carrying cost 12% a year. Annual cost = purchase + carrying + expected obsolescence (average stock value × chance of change).

At a 10% yearly chance of change, the big run wins. At 30% or more, plausible for a brand that refreshes often or a category regulators are revising, half the run is cheaper despite a unit price nearly 10% higher. Very small runs lose in every case: setup cost swamps them. Purchase sees the unit price; nobody shows them the obsolescence column.

What actually reduces the write-off

• Watch drafts, not just final rules. When a DoCA or FSSAI draft touches your declarations, move the affected SKUs to shorter runs at once.
• Freeze reorders ahead of known changes. For a brand refresh with a launch date, calculate the last safe reorder per SKU from its cover, not from the MOQ.
• Put call-off stock in writing. State how much the converter may print ahead, how long it holds it, and who pays if the artwork changes.
• Gang slow SKUs. On sheet-fed cartons, several small SKUs can often share one sheet and one make-ready; ask your converter.
• Print what changes at the line. Where the law and buyers allow, keep price, batch and dates in a coded-at-pack area, not in the litho artwork.
• Run the age report monthly. List packaging stock by SKU with months of cover and the date of last issue. Anything over six months of cover on a slow SKU is a decision, not a buffer.

What cameras can and cannot show here

What ceiling or wall cameras in the packaging store can show: - Pallets that have not moved. A bay where the same pallets have sat for weeks while neighbouring bays turn over. In a store meant to issue weekly, that is a strong signal, whatever the ERP says. - Aged bays and overflow. Stock pushed into aisles, the back wall or a "keep for now" corner, and how long it has been there. - Quarantine discipline. Whether the obsolete-stock bay stays separate after a change. In a converter, the same view covers reels and sheets waiting between processes.

What video cannot tell you: - Which artwork version is on a pallet. Shrink-wrapped cartons look the same from six metres up. The version code has to be on the pallet label and in the ERP. - Stock held at the converter. It is outside your cameras by definition. - Quantity on a pallet, or anything inside dense racking. - Whether a carton is still legally usable. That depends on the declaration and the run-out window, which is a regulatory and QA call.

What works is dwell from video, version from the ERP. When a change is announced, compare the ERP's old-artwork stock with the bays that have not moved; where they disagree, someone's records are wrong.

Where Mama fits

Mama reads the video from your existing cameras, or from cameras added where coverage is missing, and each morning sends the owner a short plain-language note on where hours and money leaked the day before. In a packaging store that means which bays hold pallets that have not moved, where overflow is building, and how often material actually goes to the lines. It watches pallets, bays and flows, not individual people. To get a read on your own plant: Leave an email or phone in the form below, and Mama will get back to you with the points worth watching and a camera plan to cover them.

FAQ

Can we keep using old cartons after an MRP or GST change? Only within the window the government allows. After the September 2025 GST revision it ran to 31 March 2026 or until exhausted, whichever came first, with the MRP corrected by stamp, sticker or online printing. Each change has its own window.

How much printed packaging stock should we hold? No universal figure. Work it out per SKU from monthly use, setup cost and a realistic chance of an artwork change this year. Slow SKUs in categories under regulatory revision deserve shorter runs than the MOQ suggests.

Is the converter allowed to make us pay for call-off stock after an artwork change? That depends on your purchase order and supply agreement. If it says you take the full run, assume you pay, and negotiate before the next run, not after the change.

Do we have to write obsolete cartons off in the books? A write-down to scrap value is likely, since AS 2 keeps materials at cost only when they go into products expected to sell at or above cost. Confirm it, and the GST credit position, with your CA.

Can a camera tell old cartons from new ones? Not reliably from a normal ceiling or wall mount. It can show which pallets have sat still and for how long; the artwork version has to come from the pallet label and the ERP.