If you are a distributor, your own brand on the product is usually worth more than the margin on somebody else’s. This page is the practical detail: what it costs to start, what the minimums are, and what we need from your designer.
What can be branded
| Product | Print method | Colours | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bin liners and refuse sacks | flexographic, on the sack | 1–4 | 500 kg per design and colour |
| Sack cases | flexographic, on kraft | 1–2 | 2 000 cases |
| Stretch film | printed core, printed film | 1–2 | 1 tonne |
| Pallets | branded block or burn mark | 1 | 500 pallets |
500 kg of printed sacks is roughly 12 000–25 000 units depending on size and gauge. For a distributor moving a pallet a month, that is between six and eighteen months of stock on a first run — which is the real constraint, not the tooling cost.
What it costs to start
| Item | One-off | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Flexo plates, sacks | €180–420 per colour | reusable, held 3 years |
| Litho origination | €400–900 | per design |
| Colour matching to Pantone | €120 | per colour, per material |
| Pre-production sample | €150–300 | credited against the first order |
Plate cost is quoted separately and invoiced once. We do not amortise it silently into the unit price, because a hidden origination cost makes a repeat-order price look like an increase when it is actually the same price without the tooling.
Plates are held for three years from last use. Repeat runs carry no origination cost and a shorter lead time — two extra working days rather than five to eight.
Artwork
Formats: PDF/X-4, AI or EPS with outlined fonts. 300 dpi minimum for any raster element.
Colours: Pantone Solid Coated references, or CMYK with a printed reference you are happy to match. Polyethylene and kraft are not white, so a colour that looks correct on screen prints differently on each substrate — this is the single most common cause of a rejected first run.
Bleed: on sacks and film the print area is inset from the edge, because the web stretches during extrusion and registration cannot hold to the sealed edge. We send a die-line with the printable area marked.
What to leave room for: the recycling and material identification marks, the EN standard reference where one applies, and — from 12 August 2026 — whatever PPWR labelling your placement requires. We flag these on the proof so they are not discovered after the plates are cut.
Timeline for a first private-label run
| Stage | Duration |
|---|---|
| Specification agreed | 1–2 days |
| Die-line issued to your designer | 1 day |
| Artwork supplied and checked | your side |
| Digital proof issued and approved | 2–3 days |
| Plates cut | 3–5 days |
| Production | 18–25 working days |
| Transit | 2–7 days |
Realistically six to eight weeks from first conversation to goods on your racking, of which the part you control is artwork approval.
Who is responsible for what
Under PPWR, putting your brand on packaging and placing it on the EU market generally makes you the producer for that packaging, with the obligations that follow — EPR registration, reporting, and holding the technical documentation. This is not a detail to discover after launch.
What we supply, with every private-label order:
- signed Declaration of Conformity per packaging type
- technical documentation pack in your name
- material composition and recycled content statement
- packaging weights by material, per unit and per pallet, for your EPR return
What you are responsible for: registering with the scheme in each country where you place the goods, and reporting the volumes. See EPR packaging by country for how that works in Germany and the Netherlands.
Note: intellectual property in the artwork stays yours. Plates carrying your design are used for your orders only, and are destroyed on request in writing.