As an expert in coffee packaging, you spent a lot of time perfecting your recipe to achieve the taste that customers like. But how do you show your hard work to your customers that reflects the value of your roasted coffee?
To improve your coffee brand, you should consider your coffee’s packaging. So how do we stand out among the many competitors in the coffee industry? We should consider the following factors when choosing the right coffee bag.
Types of packaging bags
Stand up pouch
The stand-up pouch is a common bag type in the coffee market since its price is cheaper compared to other bag types. It is composed of two panels and a round bottom that can be expanded. This makes the bag stand out on its own while allowing enough space for brand display. It is often paired up with a resealable zipper that keeps the coffee beans fresh for a longer period of time. In this way, your consumers can enjoy the rich taste of your coffee brand.
Flat bottom pouch
A flat bottom pouch is one of the best bag types in coffee packaging. What makes it popular in the packaging industry is its appearance, practicality, and marketing factor. It is more advanced than a stand-up pouch and allows more internal space to pack your coffee packaging.
Since it has five panels it provides the perfect printing space. For your packaging design to stand out more. Flat bottom comes with a tin tie or resealable zippers with an air valve to keep your coffee’s aroma fresh. The only disadvantage of this is that its printing cost is expensive and the production process is complicated.
Side gusset bag
A side gusset is a traditional bag type that is also called a side-fold bag. The biggest difference of this from the eight-side seal is it does not have a bottom gusset. But it has a strong internal space that once the bag is filled it will look like a brick standing on a shelf. With its four panels, it allows a display for brand cultural information. The only downfall is that it doesn’t have a zipper but consumers can use a tin tie to close the bag.
Flat lay pouch
This is one of the most economical and simple packaging bags there is. Its price is relatively low compared to other bag types because it is small in size. A flat lay pouch is perfect for single-serve products. If you want to promote your coffee brand to a new market then this packaging bag is the one for you. Also, a flat lay pouch can be commonly found in drip coffee, drip coffee filter, or ground coffee powder. Not only does it enhance the coffee’s rich flavor but it also provides convenience to your consumers.
Keep your coffee fresh
Are your products distributed to local shops and cafes all over the world? Do you need your coffee to guarantee a shelf life of more than 9 months and still maintain its rich quality? If so, you must rely on good packaging in order to implement this extraordinary preservation process. But how do you perfect the details of this packaging? keep on reading to find out how.
Packaging Materials
Many coffee brands like to use paper bags to pack their coffee, as it is very environmentally friendly. But they tend to ignore the fact that when they use paper bags for the coffee packaging. It does not protect the strong aroma that your coffee brand has and does not do anything to expand its shelf life.
During our ten years in the coffee business, we have tested various materials and found that in the end, the multi-layer laminated material is the best choice for coffee packaging. PET or matte film as the first layer of printing material can not only print vivid patterns. But also serve as the first line of defense to block air and moisture that affects the quality of your coffee. The use of aluminum foil shields the coffee from light and provides barrier properties and water resistance.
As the inner layer material, PE is mainly used to strengthen the firmness of the bag and extend the shelf life of your coffee. In this way, we can ensure the integrity of the bag in different transport environments.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) options
Research reports show that the effect of roasting conditions on the void structure of coffee beans shows that the higher the roasting temperature. The more pores the coffee beans have, the stronger the ability of the coffee beans to absorb moisture. Resulting in an unpleasant odor because of the carbon dioxide it produces. This makes the shelf life of coffee’s poor.
So how can these gases be reduced and eliminated so that outside moisture and air do not enter the bag and damage the coffee? The most popular option is the one-way exhaust valve. It enables the natural accumulation of carbon dioxide in freshly roasted coffee. This creates an escape route without allowing oxygen, moisture or light to enter the packaging. That can potentially threaten the quality of the coffee.
Another option is filling the coffee bag with nitrogen gas. This substitutes as the oxygen inside the bag when we use high barrier materials for packaging.
Filling process
Before selecting a type of bag, you also need to consider how your coffee is filled, whether you fill it manually or use an automatic coffee filling system.
If it is manual filling, you have to choose a bag with a wide opening to accommodate your bucket or filling equipment. Side gusset bag or flat bottom bag is an efficient choice, as they have four corners at the top to support a large opening.
However, we must note that manual filling can reduce packaging costs, but this will seriously affect your production capacity and accuracy. If you are using or considering filling with automatic filling equipment, this will greatly improve your packaging efficiency and will not limit you to choosing your preferred bag type.
Modern coffee packaging machines can accommodate bags of different shapes and sizes to ensure the accuracy of filling weight. Your production efficiency can also increase. It also provides you with a confident delivery time for large orders because of its efficiency.
Brand Marketing
Stand Out Design
In order to stand out from many competitors, coffee brands need to pay attention to marketing and advertising. We need to achieve this goal through our packaging design. We have to take into account our promotion methods and the age of our target market.
Most of our brand fans, for example, are Millenials. They like to share their favorite brands on social platforms via mobile phones. So we have to create a unique and creative design that can cope with their style. For example, vivid coffee pictures, stories of brands and founders, to tell customers the source information and photos of coffee, related certifications, baking briefs, and storage methods to increase the characteristics of the brand.
Manager labels
Professional coffee companies like to use labels in managing their coffee beans for different seasons, origins, and flavors throughout the year. Therefore, you need a label to describe the product accurately, such as processing methods, roasting date, and information about your coffee beans.
The advantage of using labels is to reduce your packaging budget and the risk of your business’s operating cost. If you want exquisite printing and manage different flavors of your coffee packaging. Then general flexible packaging is the right thing for you. They have the lowest starting point for printing and order quantity. You can also print in an inventory pouch. Where each printed design is suitable for each flavor of your coffee beans.
The texture labels that match the packaging bag can also be used to classify the different flavors of your coffee brand. Another thing to bear in mind is the size and position of the labels in the packaging.
Of course, if you have enough budget, you can print all your information directly on the packaging instead of labels. Which will attract your consumers even more.
Convenience Options
Think of the experience that your consumers have when they are enjoying the rich taste of your coffee. But once the bag is opened, its rich flavor can spread, and unfortunately, consumers cannot consume all the coffee in one sitting. That is why we need to consider the convenience of the packaging when choosing.
Zipper
The zipper is the most popular releasable option, which means that the customer can seal the bag again after opening.
This feature helps preserve the original taste of coffee beans. Also, the zipper is one of the most economical choices and secure options for your packaging. But this is only suitable for stand-up and flat bottom pouches.
Tin Tie
You can also opt for a tin tie, although it does not have the same airtight capabilities as the zipper. But it still does its job of keeping the coffee flavor from leaking out. Also, the tin tie is very convenient for consumers to use.
So generally we glue the tin tie on the top of the bag and close it through the bag fold tin tie. Another great advantage of this is that it does not have any restriction and it is widely used in different bag types to ensure that it is reclosable.
Sustainability
According to research, millennials are currently the world’s most important force for coffee consumers. They pay more attention to environmental protection. This means that 53% of them are willing to spend money more on coffee brands with such environmental awareness.
Therefore, as a coffee brand, we must take the goal of sustainability as one of our marketing strategies. We must achieve this goal by ensuring the sustainability of our packaging materials.
Flexible packaging seems to be the natural enemy of environmental protection. Among consumers due to various media and government policies. But I would like to explain here that flexible packaging is still our best packaging choice, not only in terms of packaging costs. But also in terms of environmental protection. Because we can analyze it from different perspectives:
At the moment the types of coffee packaging used in the market are single-material aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. The materials used to produce them determine their high recyclable efficiency. But it is incredible to know that according to relevant research reports.
The energy required to make them and the emission of greenhouse gasses as well as moisture is 6 to 20 times that of flexible packaging. This results in a huge volume of waste in the transportation space. The number of trucks that are required to transport coffee.
Aluminum cans or plastic bottles of the same weight is 1,173, while only 142 trucks are required to transport flexible packaging. This not only saves energy consumption in transport. But also reduces greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve the popular reduction in the carbon footprint advocated by people.
Biodegradable material is currently being pursued in the market because it is considered a future trend. In replacing plastics with biodegradable materials. But because this material is still in the research and developmental stage.
Its material instability and restrictions have caused the material not to be popularized in the coffee market. For example, the barrier properties of the material and the waterproofing are far from the height of the plastic. Furthermore, it requires more professional industrial composting facilities for degradation. Which is not yet popular in most countries and regions.
The current situation for flexible packaging
Before, most post-consumer plastics were landfilled after recycling. However, with the continuous innovation of plastic recycling technology. The recycling of flexible plastic can be done through a mechanical or chemical process and has become more widespread. This significantly increases the recycling efficiency of flexible plastic.
Conclusion
When selecting your coffee packaging. You have to consider the following: costs, operations, branding, sustainability, and more. Also, you need to understand what your business needs and select the packaging that best suits your goals. You want packaging that is aesthetically pleasing, from color to design to texture. Luck for you Xiaoyu offers all of this while providing the best packaging solutions that work well with you. If you have any questions o queries feel free to message us and we will be happy to get back to you.
