Packaging for bakery chains: one standard, every shop

A Deliveroo rider is waiting at the counter of shop 23 while the team hunts for the sandwich bag with the ingredient label panel; the box in the back is the old print without one, so someone sticks the label over the logo. Three miles away, shop 11 has the new bag. The customer never notices; purchasing finds out when the label reorder lands on its desk. This page is for the buying team of a bakery or bakery-café chain that is choosing a bakery packaging supplier and has to stop that happening in every shop.

How many formats does a forty-shop chain really need?

Fewer than the range suggests, and the number matters more than the minimum. Our minimum is 10,000 pieces per design and per format: 10,000 flat bakery bags, 10,000 block-bottom bags, 10,000 cups. A chain clears that on the baguette bag in a matter of weeks, so the question is not whether a printed bag is affordable but how many designs the business can keep straight. Every extra design is another plate and another version that has to reach every shop intact.

Do the sum with your own numbers rather than ours: bags per shop per day, times trading days, times shops. Divide by 10,000 and you have the number of call-offs in a year. A format that stays under that line, say a dedicated bag for one seasonal pastry, is better served by a neutral bag and a label than by 10,000 pieces that will not move. That is a conversation for the tender, not the first call-off.

Where does the PPDS label go on a bakery bag?

On a plain panel the design leaves free, and that panel has to be in the artwork before the first proof, not added by the shop with a sticker. Since 1 October 2021, food packed on the premises before the customer orders it, a filled roll made up in the morning for example, needs a label with the product name and a full ingredients list with allergens emphasised. Bread and pastries bagged at the counter after the customer asks for them are not prepacked for direct sale and need no label on the bag. A chain therefore runs two kinds of bag: a sandwich or snack bag with a clear label window or an unprinted panel of label size, and a counter bag with the design across the full face. Sandwiches made in a central kitchen and sent out to the shops are a third case: they are prepacked in the ordinary sense and need full labelling regardless, so the panel is needed there too. Most of the artwork problems we see from UK chains come from one file trying to do all three jobs.

Bakery packaging formats: which bag for which part of the range

The table lists the formats that actually move in a bakery-café chain. Sizes in mm, minimum per design, lead time from artwork approval.

What is not in the table we do not make: cake boxes, clear film bags, reusable cups. A chain needs those too, and they come from a second supplier. Better to know that at tender stage than at the first call-off. For matching each size to each product, the article on paper bag sizes for bakery products goes through the range item by item.

Keeping one version in every shop

The version holds when it is written in the artwork file and on the bag itself, not only in the buyer’s head. In artwork checks for chains, the most common finding is two versions of the same logo in circulation, usually because an agency refreshed the brand and the old file stayed with the supplier. We therefore keep a version index per SKU in the artwork library and, on request, print it small on the base of the bag, so a shop manager can tell from the carton which version she has. What stays with head office and what a shop may order itself is set out in our article on holding a packaging standard across multiple sites; the short version is that design, paper and format belong to head office, and the weekly quantity to the shop.

Delivery goes to your central store or your logistics partner, in pallets sorted by SKU, never mixed. Direct delivery to a single shop can be arranged, but only in full pallets; a shop that needs twelve cartons of bags is served from your store, not from Istanbul.

Seasonal print without January leftovers

The commonest mistake with a seasonal design is to size it on annual usage when it lives for six weeks. A Christmas bag at 10,000 minimum needs either enough shops to use it or a format that goes on working afterwards. Two rules hold: the base design stays all year on every format, and the season touches one format only, usually the baguette bag or the carrier. January leftovers stay small, and the base design is in the store anyway.

A thirty-shop chain plans it with us like this: the framework agreement carries an annual quantity per format, call-offs go out quarterly in full pallets, and the Christmas design gets a fixed print date in October so that it is sitting in the central store by mid-November. If a design is retired in January, the agreement already says whether the leftover is run down, taken over or scrapped, and none of those answers should be found in a dispute. How call-offs, stock windows and leftovers are written into a contract is covered in framework agreement for packaging: call-offs, stock, leftovers.

pEPR and the plastics ban: what the chain reports

A bakery chain above the pEPR thresholds, £2 million turnover and 50 tonnes of packaging handled in a year, reports the packaging it supplies to customers and pays fees on it from 2025, and the bags handed over the counter count. A chain between the lower thresholds, £1 million turnover and 25 tonnes, and those limits reports the data but pays no fee. That report needs a weight per SKU, so we supply material and weight for every design, and the version index tells your data team which weight belongs to which bag. Since 1 October 2023, single-use plastic cutlery and polystyrene cups cannot be supplied in England, which is why cutlery packs in a bakery-café are wooden and the hot cup is paperboard. This section describes a manufacturer’s practice and is not legal advice.

What to ask your bag supplier

• Do you keep a version index per SKU, and will you print it on the bag?
• Which formats on my list do you not make, and will you say so before quoting?
• How do you handle a seasonal quantity under 10,000: another format, a label or not at all?
• Do you supply material and weight per SKU for our pEPR data?
• Can the label panel for PPDS be built into the artwork rather than stuck on in the shop?

If you want to start with two formats, printed flat bakery bags cover pastries and rolls, and block-bottom bags cover whole loaves and coffee on the shelf.

In short

• For bakery chains the Bas Packaging minimum is 10,000 pieces per design and format; flat bags and wrapping papers take 10 to 15 working days, block-bottom bags, cups and carriers 15 to 20 after artwork approval.
• A version index per SKU, in the file and on the bag, keeps every shop on the same print.
• Food packed before the customer orders has needed a full ingredients label with emphasised allergens since 1 October 2021; the bag design has to leave a panel for it.
• Seasonal print goes on one format only; the base design stays on the rest all year.
• Chains above £2 million turnover and 50 tonnes report counter bags under pEPR and need a weight per SKU; plastic cutlery and polystyrene cups have been banned in England since 1 October 2023.