Why recyclable stock coffee bags are a popular choice for roasters

Once you’ve mastered the art of roasting and decided to start selling your coffee, you’ll need to find packaging to store and transport it.

The packaging must not only preserve the freshness of your coffee, but also showcase your branding and attract customers.

However, custom printed pouches are expensive and can quickly eat into profits. They often have a minimum order quantity in the thousands of units, while additional components such as degassing valves will cost considerably more.

For micro roasters and those looking to test the market, recyclable stock bags offer the perfect alternative. Versatile, eco-friendly, and cost-effective, they allow roasters to reach their customers without significant capital.

Although they may not have the full branding of custom-print coffee bags, stock bags can be customised in house, using stamps, stickers, and labels.

What are recyclable stock bags?

Recyclable stock bags are the most simple form of coffee packaging available. They are typically monochrome with little to no branding and can be found in a range of shapes and sizes.

Modern coffee stock bags can be made of compostable materials such as rice or kraft paper. They can also be made of stronger recyclable or reusable materials such as low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polylactic acid (PLA).

These materials are flexible yet strong, which allows the coffee to be safely contained and protected. They do so without compromising on cost and accessibility.

In some cases, the absence of inks typically used for other forms of packaging makes stock bags easier to recycle. However, this depends on other factors, such as materials and access to recycling facilities.

Despite their simplicity, stock bags offer the same barrier properties as custom-print bags. Multilayer stock bags effectively prevent exposure to external factors such as oxygen, moisture, heat, and light. This helps preserve the freshness of roasted coffee all the way from roaster to consumer.

Once opened, they are resealable via pocket zippers, hook and loop zippers or tin ties. Degassing valves are easy to integrate into stock bags to prolong the coffee’s shelf life.

Stock bags offer businesses plenty of opportunity for customisation with labels, stamps, and stickers. Some stock bags come with a single-colour logo. They can also feature transparent windows and pockets.

Why choose stock bags over other coffee packaging options?

Stock bags offer coffee roasters a number of distinct advantages, particularly for those who have recently started selling coffee.

Affordability

Thanks to their simple designs and low production costs, stock bags are generally by and far the most affordable packaging option.

However, it’s important not to mistake this for a lack of quality. Stock bags offer high-barrier protection against oxygen, moisture, heat, and light.

They are usually made from similar materials to custom-print bags – the major difference being the lack of customisation.

Low MOQ

Custom building print rollers and plates is an expensive practice for packaging manufacturers.

As a result, they must set minimum order quantities (MOQs) to ensure they cover their costs. This usually means high volume orders only, often in the tens of thousands.

While this makes sense for the manufacturers, it can prove crippling for roasters. Being tied to such a large quantity of bags not only puts pressure on them to sell a high amount of coffee, it can limit their ability to chop and change designs.

With stock bags, MOQs are significantly lower as they do not require custom printing. Roasters can order as little as 500 bags and simply add their own labels in house. This helps them keep down costs and remain agile.

Sustainability

Stock bags don’t require inks or print rollers. This helps cut down the amount of waste and, in many cases, reduce the overall carbon footprint attached to the manufacture of packaging.

What’s more, their versatility means they are unlikely to become redundant if roasters decide to start offering a different coffee.

This is unlike some custom-print bags, which are often only appropriate for one specific coffee.

Therefore, roasters can be sure that they will use all the stock bags they order at some point down the line, thus further reducing waste.

Choosing the right stock bags for packaging your coffee

While stock bags offer many advantages for roasters, there is no single solution suitable for every business.

It will depend on factors such as what sizes your customers want, the branding choices of your closest competitors, and whether your area has easily accessible waste processing facilities.

For example, your access to recycling facilities can affect whether your roastery can limit or eliminate packaging wastage. Depending on what is available, empty bags could be returned for refilling provided they’re in decent condition.

Paper packaging could be placed in its entirety in any standard recycling bin. Shipped bioplastic stock bags can be re-posted directly to you for responsible disposal.

Another example of how your choice of sizes can affect your packaging is in your choice of material and additional components.

A small package of whole bean coffee can be packaged using kraft paper and might not need a degassing valve while a larger order size might require a more protective material. If you primarily sell your coffee online, you might need to restrict your package sizes to ones that fit into letterboxes.

For micro coffee roasters, there are few better packaging options than recyclable stock bags. Affordable, versatile, and ready available, they allow businesses to remain agile while continuing to offer coffee with all its original, unimpaired characteristics. They also ensure roasters keep their environmental impact to a minimum.

At MTPak Coffee, we can help you find the perfect recyclable stock coffee bags. Available in a range of shapes and sizes, including side gusset and stand-up pouches, our stock bags are not only recyclable but also high barrier.

This means they preserve the freshness of the coffee just as well as our custom-print options without breaking the bank.