By Eric Fialkoff

Legend has it that Specialty Box & Packaging has its roots in a poker game.

My great grandfather Sam Fialkoff was owed a debt that could not be paid. Finally, Grandpa Sam agreed to settle the debt by accepting a piece of die-cutting machinery. The machinery made shirt boxes for laundry companies and thus a packaging business was born.

The shirt box business was short lived but the idea of building a specialty packaging business lived on with Sam’s son and my grandfather Leonard. Leonard phoned David (my Father) who’d just graduated from Ithaca College and said, “Son, I want you to start a packaging business with me.” David, who’d had great dreams of becoming a ballet dancer (OK, I made that one up) agreed to join up with his dad. David did manage to fulfill his dancing dreams many years later performing on the stage of Proctor’s Theater (NO, I’m not making that one up). David, when asked why he abandoned his own dreams to start a packaging business with his father stated simply, “My dad needed me so I said yes.”

Specialty Box & Packaging took on many faces throughout the years. What started as a shirt box company became a full-service packaging provider to department stores. As department stores became a thing of the past, Specialty Box & Packaging assisted mom-and-pop retailers with their packaging needs.

A new type of growth came when the third generation hopped on board. My brother Jason moved Specialty Box & Packaging into both the catalog business and the candy business. Ever the entrepreneur, Jason also pursued growing Specialty Box through starting new businesses. We opened up Specialty Box & Packaging South in Florida, CustomTakeOutBags became our restaurant and resort division, Chef Rags was a business that offered custom clothing for restaurants, The Packaging Café and Dream Pak were companies geared toward serving other packaging distributors. The list, the ideas, the energy and the dreams of specialty packaging seem to have no end.

Specialty Box & Packaging, truly, has always been about dreams. Is it any wonder that we are so fascinated with your specialty packaging dream? Today, Specialty Box & Packaging likes to think of itself as a business that serves small business dreamers. We want your custom packaging to be every bit as good as the “Big Boys'".

The "Big Boys" have advantages that small businesses don't enjoy, so we will do whatever it takes. We will listen closely for as long as it takes, we will cut our margins to be competitive and we will offer our exclusive custom packaging program "You Dream It, We Design It", that puts our artists to work for you at our expense. Long and short, we will do everything in our power to help make your branded packaging dreams come true.