Roll stock or finished pouches: which should you order?
The same printed laminate can leave our plant on a reel or as ready-made pouches. The right choice depends on how you fill your product.
Every job in our plant is printed and laminated in the same way. The difference comes at the end: some customers take the film as a reel, and some take it as finished pouches. Which one you need depends on what happens in your own factory.
Roll stock: for a form-fill-seal machine
If you own a machine that forms the pack, fills it and seals it in one pass, you buy film on the reel. Your order is finished at our slitting stage, where the wide printed roll is cut to the width your machine takes.
Roll stock usually costs less per pack, because the pouch-making step happens on your line and not on ours. In return, we need a few details about your machine before we start.
- The film width and the repeat length of one pack
- The core size and the largest reel your machine can carry
- The winding direction, which decides which way the print faces as the film unwinds
- The position of the register mark your machine reads
Finished pouches: for hand or semi-automatic filling
If your product is filled by hand, by a weigher or on a simple band sealer, you buy ready-made pouches. They arrive formed and sealed on three sides, and you fill and close the fourth.
Pouches are also the only route to features that a basic filling machine cannot add: a zipper, a spout, a stand-up base, a custom shape.
A quick comparison
| Roll stock | Finished pouches | |
|---|---|---|
| You need | A form-fill-seal machine | A sealer, or nothing at all |
| Best for | High, steady volumes | Smaller runs and many variants |
| Fitments | Limited by your machine | Zipper, spout, valve, shapes |
| We need from you | Machine width, core, winding | Pouch size and features |
Have a product to pack?
Tell us what it is and how it is sold. We will reply with a laminate, a format and a price.
