Why a first order has a minimum and a repeat order costs less

New brands often ask why they cannot order five hundred printed pouches. The answer sits on a rack in the press room: a set of engraved metal cylinders that has to be made before a single pouch can be printed.

One cylinder for every colour

In rotogravure printing your artwork is engraved into the surface of a steel cylinder as millions of tiny cells. The cylinder turns through a tray of ink, a blade wipes the surface clean, and the ink left in the cells transfers to the film. Each colour in the design needs its own cylinder, so a nine-colour job needs nine.

Engraving is a fixed cost. It is the same whether you print five thousand pouches or five hundred thousand.

Why that creates a minimum

Two costs do not shrink with the order. The first is the cylinders. The second is make-ready: every job uses a length of film while the press is brought into register and the colours are matched to the approved shade. Spread over a large run, both are small. Spread over a very small run, they would cost more than the pouches themselves. The minimum order is simply the point at which the job makes sense for both sides.

Why the repeat is cheaper

Once the cylinders exist, they can be used again. A repeat order pays for film, ink and press time, but not for engraving. It also prints from the same cylinders as the first run, which is what keeps the colour consistent from one delivery to the next.

Three ways to bring your first order down

• Share a layout across variants. Keep the design common and change only the flavour name or a colour band.
• Use fewer colours. Every colour you remove is a cylinder you do not pay for.
• Standardise the pouch size. Variants in the same size can run together and share the set-up.

If you are planning a range, talk to us before the design is final. A small change at the artwork stage can take a meaningful amount off the first order.