Built from the back forward
A basket is packed like a photograph. The heavy tins go at the back where they hold everything else up, the tall bottle stands in the centre because it is what the eye lands on, and every label is turned to face the front. Nothing is wedged in at an angle to make it fit.
The filler underneath is shredded kraft, not plastic straw, and it is packed down hard so nothing shifts on the back seat of a car. The wrap is a single sheet of cellophane pulled tight and gathered at the top, then the ribbon over the gather.
The morning it leaves
We pack on the day of delivery, never in advance. A basket assembled on Monday and delivered on Friday has four days of oranges sweating under cellophane, and you can tell.
