Custom Printed Cup Sleeves.

The E-flute corrugation holds an air gap between the cup wall and the hand, and that trapped air does the insulating. The flute is fine enough to print on yet deep enough to keep a hot drink comfortable to hold. Where drinks are served very hot, a heavier flute profile adds insulation at a small cost in print smoothness.

By cup size and taper rather than a flat measurement, since the sleeve has to grip without sliding. The standard band is 2.25 inches tall and fits 10 to 20 oz hot cups. Twelve and sixteen ounce cups often share one sleeve. An 8 oz cup usually needs its own. Send us the cup you use and we'll cut the profile to it.

Per drink, once the cup is counted, the two come out roughly level. The real advantage of a sleeve is cheap artwork changes: one plain cup, many sleeves across the year. Sleeves also ship and stack flat, which matters when counter space is tight.

They are for hot cups only, since a sweating cold cup would soak the fluting.

Kraft with one-colour flexo is the cheapest and most recognisable, and full CMYK on a white liner suits a sleeve that is the main brand surface. Seasonal design runs are the main use case. A blind emboss presses the logo into the fluting for a tactile detail. Plain unprinted kraft is there for operators who sticker their own.

Because it is held at face height for the whole drink and costs a fraction of a printed cup. A customer looks at the sleeve every time they lift the cup. One-colour flexo on kraft is the volume-economics route, so the cost per impression is lower than any other surface a cafe owns. Changing the artwork means reprinting the sleeve and leaving the cup stock alone.

Printed sleeves start at 500 per design. Beyond 1,000 the tiers apply. Because the minimum is low per artwork, a cafe can run three or four seasonal designs a year without any of them being a large commitment, and unprinted kraft can be stocked in bulk as the base.

A standard run is 7 to 10 business days and a rush run is 5 to 7 business days. Sample sleeves are ready in 5 to 7 business days so you can slide one onto your own cup and check the grip. We credit the sample fee once the sleeve order lands.

Yes on both counts, and the recycled content can go much higher than on a cup because the sleeve never touches the drink. There is no food-contact restriction on the fibre, so post-consumer content is limited only by print quality. After use the sleeve goes in the paper stream on its own, separate from the coated cup.