Product packaging does more than just protect your products; it also says a lot about your brand. Keep in mind that this is the first interaction that customers have with your products, and if your labels don’t make a good first impression, you’ll probably lose them!

Consumer behavior has significantly changed, and they no longer engage with a brand in the stores before buying. Studies also show that customers only take about 20 seconds to decide whether or not they’ll pick a product. Make this time count!

You may have a good product, but your customers don’t know that. The only way you can pull them in is through unique and quality packaging. Here’s where flexible barrier comes into play, specially at the food packaging industry. Check out our ultimate guide to barrier packaging below.

What Is Flexible Barrier Packaging?

You certainly have seen this food service packaging material everywhere!

Flexible barrier packaging is a part of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). This is any packaging that modifies the atmosphere inside itself to preserve the goods.

A classic example would be canning, which started in wine bottles and was taken from watching monks make champagne. They began with a pasteurization process followed by maintaining a modified atmosphere in the jar to stop the champagne from going bad. Aluminum cans were the next invention and had a wide adoption rate. They are, however, being phased out and replaced by flexible barrier packages.

Flexible barrier packaging was born out of the space race as NASA looked for ways to cut out weight and maintain freshness. Some of the earliest products to use this packaging were MREs. As the name implies, the key difference between plastic bags and barrier packaging is the barrier.

Plastic bags do not have an enhanced barrier which is often made from combinations of plastic films laminated together for increased strength.

What Are the Most Common Used Materials?

Well known as food packaging resources but these films have nearly endless applications!

Due to the advancement of packaging technology, there are several flexible barrier films for you to choose from;

Polyesters (PET)

Polyester is highly preferred because it is effective and affordable. It’s made from quality film that’s perfect for packaging applications such as machine parts, food, or bags with view windows. Polyester also has a great weight to strength ratio and comes with its own barrier.

Its dimension stability is impressive and is usually heat and tear-resistant.

Metalized Barrier METPET / VMPET

Aluminum foil is often costly, so a metalized barrier was created as an affordable solution. They are made from coating polyester with a metalized vapor or thin metallic film to fortify the barrier and make the packaging surface reflective.

Nickel and Chromium are also options, but aluminum is the preferred metal for this type of barrier, used for multiple food packaging applications and even medical device packaging.

Aluminum Foil (AL) Combined with PET, MOPP, and PE

This type of flexible barrier packaging is used when maximum shelf life or barrier is required. When employed as part of a barrier lamination structure, Aluminum foil creates what is, in essence a flexible “aluminum can”. Aluminum has a very high barrier to moisture and oxygen transmission which can be as low as .0006 grams/24h. This is a extremely low migration rate which creates an amazing barrier. 

Nylon Laminations and Co-extrusions

Nylon laminations usually combine polyester or foil with nylon to enhance barrier strength, and bag strength so the bag does not break or rip. The lamination process is usually different depending on the product requirement. Nylon Co-extrusions are mainly used for vacuuming. Due to the co-extrusion, the film is able to stretch without breaking and conform to the shape of your products when vacuumed around them.

Polypropylenes 

OPP, BOPP, MOPP, CPP are common barrier films which offer different performance characteristics than PET, PE, or a Metalized material. First OPP is generally lower in cost, and also can be used to create a matte lamination, making the bag matte. Last but not least Polypropylene when used as a cast material has a higher melting point than other plastic films commonly used for interior liners. This makes it possible to create bags that both heat seal but which can be exposed to temperatures above 100C for sterilization or boiling. 

Polyethylene (LDPE, PE, LLDPE)

Polyethylene by itself is a weak barrier, even when used in high build or mil thicknesses. But when combined with other plastic films, Polyethylene helps bring it all together. PE is predominately used as the interior food safe and heat sealable layer, PE promotes elasticity and has a natural “stretch” to it. Polyethylene is non-reactive to most chemicals, and can withstand high acids and bases. 

Factors to Consider When Deciding the Packaging Material to Use

 Vapor and oxygen barrier packaging, tensile strength, UV light protection – there is a lot to consider at keeping your products safe and reducing food waste.

The type of flexible barrier packaging you choose ultimately depends on the product being packaged. Is it a fresh consumable? Does it have to be stored for extended periods of time? Do you want customers to view the product? Is is sensitive to oxygen? While other factors are still important, the product requirements still remain the key determining factor.

Other aspects you should consider while searching for food packaging resources include:

Estimated Product Shelf Life

If your products have a low shelf life, you should go for low or medium-barrier plastic film. This is because such products are usually low-value retail items that are consumed quickly, so your primary focus should be on economic packaging.

For products with a longer shelf life, high-barrier materials are the best option for packaging reducing food loss and waste of other products. They are very stable and will keep your products fresh for a long time.

Sensitivity to Moisture

Some products like nutritional mixes and dry food ingredients are extremely sensitive to moisture and should be packaged in enhanced barrier plastic films. This includes high-density polyethylene and foil laminations that are effective in preventing moisture from getting into the bag.

Sensitivity to Oxygen

Products like chips change their taste and texture when exposed to oxygen and should be packaged in oxygen barrier packaging materials. They prevent oxygen transmissions inside the bag and extend the shelf life of your product.

Physical Capacity

The flexible barrier material used should be strong enough to hold your products. You should conduct a physical test to determine how well the packaging can protect your product against external elements such as light, dust, heat, and air.

Availability

The packaging material used should be easy to restock within short time frames after you place your order. Any delays in sourcing the packaging materials could also impact the production process and, ultimately, your sales. Enough reasons to make sure you have reliable supplier that provide automated packaging solutions.

Other factors you should consider include;

• Durability: the flexible barrier material should remain in good condition for long periods of time to maintain product freshness while reducing food waste.
• Price: you should go for a barrier packaging material that strikes the ideal balance between the set budget and your desired properties.
• Fitness of purpose: the properties of the material should be enough to serve your packaging needs.

Flexible Barrier Is the Way to Go!

We provide quality food service packaging that will make your business thrive.

Product packaging strongly influences a customer’s buying decision. Studies have shown that consumers make over 70% of all buying decisions at the point of purchase, and the main aspect that determines whether they pick your product or walk away is your packaging.

Flexible barrier packaging comes in many forms and can be customized to meet your audience’s needs. From medical device packaging to food service packaging, from cosmetics to alcoholic beverages – it is compatible with a wide range of products making it the go-to packaging solution for many manufacturers.

If you’re not sure which packaging solutions your products need, we’d love to help you. Contact us today and get a 5% Price Match Guarantee.

How Much Do Custom Printed Stand Up Pouches Cost? | Cost of Custom Stand-Up Pouches & Bags

Custom printed mylar bags and stand up pouches pricing can vary significantly based on the material, features, and size of your bag, as well as the printing method you use and the lead time you choose. Let’s break down all the variables that go into the cost of a stand up pouch.

1. The Size of Your Stand-Up Pouches (+ Do You Need Multiple Sizes?)

It seems fairly obvious that the larger the stand up bag the more raw materials are needed to produce the bag, therefore the cost increases as the size of the bag increases. But what you might not know is that you can save money by choosing to make your pouch from a standard stand up pouch size, versus a customized size.

For example, if you are starting out, and don’t have strict requirements, your product may be able to fit a standard size bag, versus trying to make an exact match on the dimensions desired for your bag. 

2. How Many Designs You Have

First, let’s clarify what we mean by design. You may have one product, like coffee bags, but have multiple designs because you sell different variations and flavors of coffee. Maybe you sell decaf whole beans, and ground dark roast coffee. Typically each SKU will have it’s own design. The more designs you have, the higher the cost of the bags because the printers used to create your bags will have to be “reset” for each design. 

If you are new to packaging you might be wondering how many designs do I need? You don’t really need to have a lot of designs if you are just starting out. One “trick” is to use one design and then add a small sticker to the package to delineate different flavors for example. 

3. How Many Bags You Need

This is also quite obvious. The more custom stand-up pouches you need, the higher the total price of your order will be. But let’s talk about the nuance here. What if you only need 5,000 stand-up pouches right now to fulfill an order, or to get your business started, BUT you could get a quantity discount if you were able to buy more bags now. 

Of course, adding on more bags will increase the total price, but you also need to consider UNIT PRICE. If you are able to get 5,000 bags for $1,000 and 7,500 bags for $1,100, the unit price becomes 20 cents per bag and 14.6 cents per bag, respectively.

If you are launching a new product, or perhaps a new company, you will have less direct experience with how your product will sell. Ordering might become a trade-off between the quantity discount and your concerns about using all the bags you order.

If you aren’t sure what’s best for your company, contact our friendly packaging experts for a free consultationfree consultation.

4. What Material & Features You Choose

We’ve all come to expect that organic food costs more than conventionally grown foods. We can understand the additional costs required to generate a successful crop when you are not using conventional approaches. 

It’s the same thing for stand up pouches. The materials and features you choose for your stand up pouch will affect the total cost. For example, Compostable packaging material is more expensive than traditional mylar packaging.

Additionally the thickness of your material can drive up cost. For example, chips are typically packaged in low barrier bags because they are low margin items that move off store shelves very quickly. But if you are packaging a dog treat that might sit on the shelf for four months before someone purchases it, then you need a higher barrier material.

5. Zipper types

Lastly, the features you choose can impact the price of your bags. If you want child resistant zippers that will cost more than a simple zipper. There are eight different types of zippers, all of different purposes, that can all affect the price of your bag.

​Child Resistant

Zipper​

​Heavy Duty Flanged

Zipper​

Pull-Tab Style Zipper (Insert Style Zipper)

Powder 

Zipper

Standard Flange

Zipper

String

Zipper

Hook and Loop

Zipper

Wide Flange

Zipper

6. How Soon You Need Your Bags

You know those shipping options you have to choose from when ordering your favorite products online? Next Day Shipping is always going to cost you the most because a lot more planning and careful execution must occur to ensure your package arrives on your doorstep when you expect it.

In the packaging industry, we refer to “how soon do you need it” as Lead Time. As with anything that is custom made, it takes time to print your bag. The more of a rush job, the more you can expect to pay because the production schedule will have to be altered to fit in your urgent need. And those changes cost money. 

Alternatively if you are a planner you can save money by choosing the longest lead time, knowing your bags will arrive on time. If you call your packaging manufacturer the day before you run out of bags, expect to hand over a pretty penny to get those bags printed, and shipped to you. 

At CarePac we manufacturer in the United States. This allows us to control lead times, shipping costs, and reliable delivery. If you are new to packaging we suggest avoiding all the pitfalls of ordering from China because you will likely be hit by unexpected delays through customs (even if you were promised a short lead time), high shipping costs and additional taxes you hadn’t planned for. 

7. Printing Method

This is by far the least understood aspect of packaging cost. And there isn’t one printing on method that is better than the other. In fact, unless you are in the custom packaging business you wouldn’t be able to tell which bag is plated printed and which bag is digital printed. The process of printing is the difference. You can always ask for pouch sample first. 

 Digital printing is the process of printing digital-based images directly onto your package.

Plate Printing uses a thin copper plate to transfer your design onto the pouch. With plate printing, artwork is separated into four ink colors: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) — EACH COLOR REQUIRES A PLATE.

Get an Quick Quote for a Custom Printed Stand Up Pouch

No matter how crucial this product launch is to your company, you do have a budget. Whether you’re a start up, bringing a new product to market, or restocking an existing product, you want the best bang for your buck.  

CarePac is happy to discuss material types, printing options, and additional features that will help you decide what bags are best for you. You’ll receive great bags while staying on target!

We will match any competitor’s price within 5%, guaranteed. That means you don’t have to settle for an inferior product just to save money.

You can have the BEST stand-up pouches on the market – along with our legendary customer service – for practically the same price!

5% Price Match Guarantee

Now You Really CAN Have The Highest Quality at the Best Price

Stick Pack Packaging: Does the

Packaging Work for Your Brand?

You’ve been weighing your options regarding stick pack packaging solutions and services. Now you have to make a decision: how do you choose the right pack packaging stick pack solution for your brand? It all boils down to whether you want to make your own bags or use the finished ones. 

CarePac provides two types of powder stick pack packaging: flow wrap or form fill stick packs and finished stick bags. Not sure which one suits your packaging needs? Read on to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of stick packs packaging before a final decision.

1. Flow Wrap Packaging

Flow wrap stick packs are where you get a roll stock or tubing, and you use a machine to form and fill the stick all at the same time. An excellent example of flow wrapping or form filling stick packs include traditional candy bar wrappers

Before ordering these products, be sure you weigh its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of stick pack packaging

Some of the benefits that come with flow wrap products include:

Great for high volume and speed of filling

If your foremost consideration is high filling speed and volume, a flow wrap solution will often be more advantageous than filling premade pouch. So flow wrap or form fill is suitable if your company is large and produces thousands or millions of small packaged products. Combining these packaging and new technologies (that come will completely robotic infeed, servo drives, and other features) makes this benefit possible.

The cost of roll stock and tubing will be lower per-unit

The type of stick pack film is among the many variables that come into play when determining the cost of packaging materials and products. Choosing to go with flow wrap packaging for your products helps you cut down on the cost of tubing and rolling in the long run. You see, roll stock is more flexible because you’re not forming specific types and sizes of bags. So using it for multiple bag sizes becomes cheaper.  For more tips on how to reduce packaging cost, check out our full article here. 

Disadvantages of stick packs

However, flow wrap stick packaging also comes with some drawbacks:

Bag-making costs 

When talking about flow wrap packaging for your products, you assume the responsibility of making your bags in-house. This means you’ll need employees to load the supplied roll of material onto the form-fill-seal (FFS) machine and monitor the creation of those pouches.

Everything from loading the roll stock to film tracking to sealing has to be accurate. So you’ll have to equip the employees with extensive technical knowledge to set up the machines properly and monitor changeover.

Therefore, if yours is a small business, the flow wrap or form fill is not going to be a suitable solution due to the high cost of machinery, equipment, and labor, last but not least FFS machines can be upwards of $100k for FDA uses. 

Impossible to make advanced bags

You’ll have to sacrifice some flexibility if you need to achieve high packaging speed. So form fill machines and packaging are not flexible enough to help you come up with unique branding styles and designs for your products. It’s only suitable for higher output and longer runs where you need only 1 to 4 standard pouch styles and sizes. 

Excess packaging waste

The in-house bag-making process will eventually lead to excessive concentration of the rolls and tubing in your facility. You’ll also start noticing product and packaging waste from the packaging machine.  So be sure to invest in waste disposal around the machine to avoid contamination of finished products.

2. Finished Stick Bags

CarePac can also sell you small finished bags, which you can fill using a hopper filler. So the cost of designing and creating them is not your responsibility. 

Advantages

A wide variety of pouches

If you need a myriad of bag styles, sizes, or shapes to suit your brand, consider using finished packaging. The option also allows you to change the packaging varieties multiple times on the same day, thanks to its flexibility regarding short runs and artistic designs. 

Low labor cost 

Choosing finished bags means that you’ll not have to bear the cost of making them- CarePac will fabricate and deliver the bags to your company. The remaining work will just involve loading the pouches into the machine’s bag magazine, eliminating the need for technical expertise.

And if you have invested in robotic pick and place systems, you can say goodbye to manual labor. You’ll only need few entry-level employees to load and operate the machines without much help. 

Minimal Scrap

You’ll also not have to pay for product and packaging waste disposal (unlike the form filled stick packaging) because waste and scrapes are minimal. You see, disposing of scrap from premade bags is left in the hands of CarePac, as the creation of the bags doesn’t happen in your facility.

Another thing is that the finished bag machine allows you to set up, calibrate, and carry out changeovers without running the product. That means you can recycle the bags for the final production. 

Disadvantages

Slow Speeds and Lower Volume

One drawback of this solution is its slow speed. Yes, the industry has fast hopper filling machines, but they’re still lagging. 

However, it’s worth noting that faster is not always better- While speed is crucial, it may not be the most critical consideration. It would be best if you looked into your unique needs when deciding on packaging products. 

High initial investment on flexible packaging films 

The cost of purchasing a premade pouches’ machine can be high. Beyond the upfront costs, be sure to consider other cost factors that will impact your machine’s total ownership in the long run. For instance, using finished bags can leave behind a lot of inventory if the product is discontinued. 

Conclusion

Let’s face this: There is no one-size-fits-all answer regarding the right stick packs for your brand. Many factors come into play when choosing the best solution:

• Company: think size of your company, length of runs, types of products, and volume of products

• Logistical factors: think about your product’s shape and weight plus their relationship with the shipping expenses. Can you easily palletize or pack your products for shipping?
• Budget and cost constraints: what has your organization leadership decided regarding packaging costs? 
• Your employees’ technical skills (maintenance staff, production crew, and operators): you may decide to go for a solution that complements your existing crew’s technical knowledge if you don’t want to invest in new or highly-trained employees. 
• Marketing department’s requirements: think shelf presence, artistic styles, aesthetic appeal, and ads area.
• Consumer base requirement: think messaging on the package, convenience, portability, and easy-open and re-sealable options.

Whether flow wrap or finished bags are suitable for your brand, consider CarePac, a reputable company that will make your products fly off the shelves. Get an instant quote now.