Private Label Gel Packs: The Print, Size and MOQ Questions Buyers Ask First

Every second enquiry about private label starts with a photograph of a competitor’s pack and the line “we want this, with our logo”. Fair enough. The interesting part is what happens between that photo and a production run, because six of the twelve questions buyers ask first are about things that will change the price by more than the print does.

Here is the list, in roughly the order they come up, with the answers that matter.

Artwork and print

Which print method, and what does the plate cost? Flexographic printing on a pouch is cheap per unit and expensive to set up: four plates at USD 250–400 each, one per colour, plus a proof. Digital print has no plate cost and a higher unit price, which makes it viable below about 5,000 packs per design. If you are ordering 20,000, flexo wins. If you are testing a design, digital wins.

How many colours? Each colour is a station, a plate and a registration risk. Two colours on a white film is the practical minimum for a clean look. Photographic gradients need process print, which is a different conversation entirely.

Can the print cross the seal? This is the question buyers never ask and should. Ink in the seal zone reduces seal strength by 20–40%, depending on the ink and the film. If your artwork has a full-bleed background, the converter must either keep ink 8 mm off the seal or specify a seal-resistant ink. A logo printed over the seal is the most common cause of a private-label leak complaint.

Who owns the artwork file? Get the layered file and the plate ownership in writing. If you change suppliers in three years, you do not want to redraw your own logo.

Size, fill and film

What sizes are available? Standard pouch formats run from about 80 × 120 mm to 200 × 300 mm. Below 100 g fill the seal-to-fill ratio gets awkward and the pack is mostly film. Above 1.5 kg the film gauge has to go up, and the pack needs a gusset or it will bulge and stack badly.

What film gauge? 80–100 micron coextruded PE is normal for packs up to 800 g. At 1 kg and above, 120 micron or a nylon laminate. Thinner film saves 3–5 cents and costs you the pallet when a corner punctures.

Does the fill weight change the film? Yes, and it also changes the freeze expansion. A pack filled to 92% at 20 °C can burst at −18 °C if the headspace is wrong. For private label, decide the fill weight and the headspace together, and put both on the drawing.

Can we choose the gel colour? Yes, but avoid dark blue and red if the pack may contact food. Dye migration through a pinhole is visible and alarming, and a clear or milky gel avoids the conversation entirely.

Order size and paperwork

What is the real MOQ? Not the film MOQ. The binding constraint is usually the print run plus the film roll minimum, which is often 300–500 kg of film. At 12 g of film per pack that is 25,000–40,000 packs per design. Below that, digital print on stock film is the only sensible route.

What is the lead time from artwork approval? Plates take 7–10 days, film 15–20, filling 5. Total 30–35 days is realistic. Anyone quoting 14 days is either using stock film or has not checked.

Which food-contact documents come with it? You need a declaration of compliance for the film and for the gel, plus a migration test summary if the pack will touch food directly. Get them before the print run, not after.

Who approves the sample? Insist on a sealed production sample, printed on the actual film, filled with the actual gel, frozen and thawed once. A digital proof tells you nothing about how the ink behaves when the pack is wet.

The mistake that costs a container

A supplement brand ordered 60,000 printed packs with a full-bleed navy background and a white logo position that ran across the top seal. The first 4,000 were filled and sealed without incident. The next 12,000, run on a warmer afternoon with a slightly slower seal cycle, leaked at a rate of 9%. The ink had absorbed enough heat to prevent full polymer interdiffusion at the seal interface.

The fix was a 6 mm ink-free margin around the seal, which meant new plates and a reprint at the brand’s cost. The margin should have been in the artwork brief from day one.

Before you approve artwork, take a printed sample, fill it, seal it at the low end of your seal window, and hold it at 40 °C for a week. If it holds, print. If it does not, move the ink. The custom gel pack SAP supply programme handles the gel side of private label; the film and print brief is where most of the risk sits.