SealedPrintedFilledKeptMylar Bags

Width × length, plus the gusset depth if the bag has one. Never length × width × height — a pouch has no fixed height, because it takes the shape of whatever is inside it.

Width and length are the flat bag laid down on a table. The gusset is the fold at the base or the sides that opens out when the bag is filled and gives it a footprint to stand on.

So a stand-up pouch quoted as 6" × 9" + 3.5" is six inches across, nine inches tall when flat, with a three-and-a-half inch bottom gusset. That third figure is the one most often left off an enquiry, and it is what decides whether the bag stands up or slumps.

In practice you do not need to work any of this out yourself. Tell us the fill weight and what the product is — density matters enormously, since 500 g of granola needs a far larger bag than 500 g of protein powder — and we size the bag and return a dieline free with the quote.

They overlap, but they are not the same thing, and the difference matters when you are specifying.

Mylar describes the film — a laminated structure with a genuine barrier layer, originally named after a DuPont polyester film. It is about what the bag is made of.

Ziplock describes the closure — the resealable press-to-close track along the top. It is about how the bag opens and shuts.

Most mylar bags sold at retail have a ziplock, which is why the terms get used interchangeably. But you can have a mylar bag with no zipper at all — sealed shut, opened once, which is cheaper and correct for single-use products. And you can have a zipper on a thin single-layer bag with almost no barrier, which is the sandwich bag in a kitchen drawer.

If someone offers you a "ziplock bag" cheaply, the question to ask is what the film structure is. The closure is the visible part; the barrier is what protects the product.

Work backwards from the shelf life you need, not from what looks best.

Clear film — modest barrier, and the product is visible. Right for fast-moving goods sold within weeks: bakery, confectionery, fresh produce, anything where the customer wants to see it and it will not sit long.

Metallised (VMPET) — a microscopically thin layer of aluminium vacuum-deposited onto film. Strong oxygen, moisture and light barrier at a reasonable cost, and it is what most of this category uses. Right for snacks, powders, pet food and most dry goods.

Full aluminium foil — an actual foil layer rather than a deposited one. The highest barrier available in flexible packaging, and effectively total against light. Specified for coffee, oily products, pharmaceuticals, long-term food storage and anything needing many months of shelf life.

The practical rule: if the product oxidises — coffee, nuts, anything oily — do not economise on barrier, because the saving is small and the failure is the product going rancid on a shelf with your name on it.

Yes, if the coffee is packed fresh — and this is the single most important thing to get right on a coffee pouch.

Freshly roasted coffee releases carbon dioxide for several days after roasting. It is called degassing, and it does not stop just because the coffee has been bagged. In a sealed pouch with no vent, that gas has nowhere to go: the bag inflates like a balloon, and if the pressure builds far enough it splits a seal.

A one-way degassing valve solves it. It lets CO₂ escape from inside the bag while preventing oxygen entering from outside — which matters, because oxygen is exactly what stales coffee. The valve is heat-welded into the film during manufacture.

You can skip it only if the coffee has been rested for several days before packing, which most speciality roasters do not want to do because it costs them freshness. If you are packing within a day or two of roasting, the valve is not optional.

It is worth noting that a valve on the pack also signals freshness to customers who know the category.

These are constructions, and each one is a different answer to how the bag holds weight and how it faces a shopper.

Flat pouch — two sheets sealed on three sides. No gusset, lies flat, cheapest. Right for small fills, sachets and anything sold flat or hanging.

Stand-up (doypack) — a bottom gusset that opens into a footprint so the bag stands. The most common retail format, and the default for anything up to a couple of kilos.

Side gusset — folds down both sides instead. Holds more volume for the same footprint, which is why it is traditional for coffee and larger dry goods.

Flat bottom (box pouch) — five printable panels and a genuine flat base. Stands with real confidence, blocks tidily on a shelf, and reads as premium. It is the most expensive of the four and usually worth it where shelf presence matters.

Quad seal — four vertical corner seals. Structurally the strongest, with straight sides that carry dense fills without bulging. Specified for heavier products like rice, grain and pet food.

As a rough guide: light and small, flat pouch. Retail, stand-up. Premium shelf presence, flat bottom. Heavy or dense, quad seal.

500 units for custom printed bags, with tiered pricing above 1,000. Sample orders from 10 units are available if you want to handle the material before committing.

The reason for a minimum at all is gravure printing. Each colour needs an engraved cylinder, and that tooling is a one-off cost regardless of whether you print five hundred bags or fifty thousand. Below a few hundred units the tooling dominates the unit price to the point where custom printing stops making commercial sense.

This is also why the price per bag drops so sharply with volume — you are amortising the same cylinder cost across more units. The jump from 500 to 2,000 units usually cuts the unit price substantially, which is worth modelling before you commit to a small first run.

If you need very low quantities, printed labels applied to plain stock bags are the honest alternative. It costs more per unit at volume and looks less finished, but it avoids the tooling entirely.

Mostly not, and it is better to be straight about that than to imply otherwise.

The barrier that makes a mylar bag work is the same thing that makes it hard to recycle. A laminate bonds several different materials — polyester, aluminium, polyethylene — into one film, and recycling streams are built to process single polymers. There is no practical way to separate them at kerbside.

There are two real routes if this matters to your brand:

Mono-material structures — built entirely from one polymer family, usually polyethylene or polypropylene, so the pack can enter an existing recycling stream. Barrier is lower than a mixed laminate but much closer than it used to be, and this is where most of the industry is heading.

Certified compostable films — PLA, cellulose or kraft with a compostable liner, certified to EN 13432 or ASTM D6400. Genuinely breaks down, but barrier is meaningfully lower, so shelf life is shorter.

Both involve a trade-off. Tell us the product and the shelf life you need and we will tell you honestly whether either will hold it.

Yes. Child-resistant pouches use a certified closure that requires a deliberate two-step action — typically pressing a slider inward while sliding it across — which small children have not developed the motor coordination to perform reliably.

The certification that matters in the US is 16 CFR 1700.20, tested with panels of children and adults. It is a test of the closure, not a claim a supplier can simply assert, and if a regulator or a retailer asks you need the documentation to back it up.

Two things worth knowing before you specify it:

Adults have to be able to open it too. The same standard tests senior adults, because a closure nobody can open gets left open on a counter — which defeats the purpose entirely.

It is not the same as tamper evidence. Child resistance stops a child getting in. Tamper evidence proves nobody got in before the customer. Regulated products usually need both, which means a CR zipper with a heat-sealed strip above it.

Most common in cannabis, nicotine and some supplement categories.

15–20 business days from artwork approval to delivery for a standard custom printed run.

The stages are roughly: artwork and dieline confirmation, then cylinder engraving for gravure printing, then printing, then lamination, then bag making and finishing, then quality check and dispatch.

The engraving stage is the one that sets the floor on lead time. Cylinders are physically engraved for each colour, and that cannot be rushed meaningfully.

The stage that actually delays most orders is none of the above — it is artwork. Files supplied at the wrong resolution, in the wrong colour space, or without bleed have to go back and forth, and that round trip is usually longer than any production step. Sending print-ready artwork at the outset is the single biggest thing within your control.

Repeat orders run faster, because the cylinders already exist.

All orders ship nationwide across the USA.

Any size — we build to the fill rather than to a stock range. But it helps to have starting points, so these are the sizes the category clusters around:

• Sample and single-serve — around 3" × 5", flat pouch, no gusset
• 4 oz coffee — around 4" × 6" + 2.5" gusset
• 12 oz coffee — around 5.5" × 8.5" + 3.5", usually with a valve
• 1 lb / 500 g dry goods — around 6" × 9" + 3.5"
• 2 lb protein powder — around 7" × 11" + 4", with extra headspace for the scoop
• 5 lb pet food or grain — around 9" × 14" + 5", often quad seal
• 1 gallon food storage — 10" × 14", flat, heavier gauge
• 5 gallon bucket liner — 20" × 30", flat, 5 mil or heavier

These are common industry sizes, not a fixed list. Density is what actually decides the bag, so send the fill weight and the product and we will size it properly and return a dieline free with the quote.