Pet Food Packaging.

Fat from kibble migrates into an unsuitable inner film, softens it and weakens the seals from the inside. The bag looks fine at packing and fails on the shelf weeks later. On higher-fat recipes we specify a grease-resistant sealant layer that the oil cannot penetrate.

This is the one spec we insist on knowing before we quote. Send us the fat percentage on the label and we'll match the inner layer to it, since a standard laminate that is fine for a dry biscuit is the wrong bag for an oily one.

Up to about 1 kg a stand-up pouch works, from 1 to 5 kg we move to quad seal or flat bottom, and above 5 kg a flat bottom or side gusset bag with a handle. A stand-up pouch bulges under weight and will not stand once it passes roughly 2 kg, so we do not offer it there.

Vertical corner seals on a quad seal bag act as posts that hold a heavy fill square. That matters for a bag that is dragged across a floor and stacked on a pallet.

Above 5 kg we punch a reinforced die-cut handle into the top seal, or apply a separate plastic handle for the largest formats. The die-cut version gets an extra patch of material at the hole so it does not tear out on the first lift.

Handle tear-out is a packaging failure we see whenever someone skips the reinforcement to save a cent. A 15 lb bag is lifted from the car, into the cupboard and out again every feeding time, so the hole has to survive dozens of lifts rather than one.

Matte lamination is the premium look in pet and it hides the scuffs a heavy bag picks up, which is why most of our pet customers choose it. Gloss gives saturated colour for grocery and mass retail. A kraft outer suits natural and grain-free ranges.

Gravure print covers the large faces edge to edge, with room for a feeding guide panel on the back or side. A clear window showing kibble size is a purchase factor shoppers really use. Soft-touch is there for premium and veterinary lines.

Sizing starts from the filled weight and the bulk density of the kibble, not from a flat dimension. A 9 x 14 inch side gusset bag covers 5 lb for most dry foods, and a 12 x 18 inch bag handles 15 lb. Gusset depth is added to those figures.

Send us a cup of your food and the target weight. Density varies enough between a small biscuit and a large freeze-dried piece that the same bag can be right for one and half-empty for the other.

A custom pet food bag runs from 500 pieces per size and design. Large-format gusseted bags carry more film than a small pouch, so the per-unit cost is higher, and it steps down as the quantity passes 1,000. We can take a single design across several sizes on one order.

The top of the range is 100,000 bags. Most of the brands we pack for start at the minimum on a new recipe and reorder in the thousands once it sells.

Standard turnaround is 7 to 10 business days after approval, with a 5 to 7 business day rush available. Samples are 5 to 7 business days, and we knock the sample cost off the production invoice when you order.

Fill a sample to weight, lift it by the handle a few dozen times and leave it open for a week. That covers the three ways a pet food bag fails in the wild, and it is cheaper than finding out from a customer.

Film gauge of 0.14 to 0.20 mm gives the laminate enough body to take abrasion from kibble on the inside and scuffing on the outside. Kibble is abrasive, and a thin film wears through at the base after a few weeks of being slid in and out of a cupboard.

The zipper or slider closure keeps the bag closed between feeds, which keeps smell in and moisture out. A slider is the easier of the two to work one-handed on a large, heavy bag.