Stand-Up Pouch Packaging: Storage Uses & More!
Have you increasingly seen paper or polyethylene bags standing upright on shelves of your neighborhood supermarket?
Those are called stand-up pouches, and they’ve become very popular. In fact, the global market for this packaging was $11.13 billion in 2018 and is estimated to reach $20.12 billion by 2026.
You must be wondering what all the hype is about. Well, consumers, retailers, traders, and producers cite the increased popularity due to the low transport cost, longer shelf life, low production cost, low weight, and recyclability of the stand-up pouches.
Let’s learn more about stand-up pouch bags.
What Is Stand-Up Pouch Packaging?
A stand-up pouch is a flexible packaging that stands upright for display, use, and storage. It is a plastic bag with the characteristics of a plastic bottle.
Multi-layer materials make up flexible pouches, including foil, paper, and various plastic films. Brands will print their labels and preferred graphics on these bags for marketing purposes.
There’re many design alternatives for stand-up pouches, with the most popular one forming a “W” with its bottom gussets that open, allowing a flat bottom. You’re sometimes likely to see side gussets.
Also, you’ll often see stand-up pouches with reclosable zip strips and pour sprouts.
How are stand-up pouches made, you ask? It’s constructed from numerous layers of laminated barrier materials to form a continuous sheet. The construction of the bag and the barrier materials determine the shelf life and durability of the packaging. The materials also determine the risk of the bag getting tears, leaks, and punctures.
That said, picking a premium quality bag means fewer issues for your business.
What Are Stand-Up Pouch Packages Made Of?
A stand-up pouch will have 2-3 layers of build: an outer layer, a middle layer, and an inner layer. Each of these layers offers a barrier of protection, safeguarding and preserving the bag’s contents from elements like external odors, oxygen, moisture, and UV light.
The Outer Layer
The outer layer of stand-up pouches can consist of natural kraft paper that’s natural and earth-friendly. Its porous, natural texture allows you to label and add graphics that communicate your brand message to your consumers. The outer layer can also be made from black kraft paper that offers the texture and natural feel of kraft paper and a powerfully attractive look.
Quality kraft paper is robust and durable as it resists tears and punctures. Keep in mind that low-quality kraft paper exists in the market.
The Middle Layer
The most popular materials used for the middle layer include aluminum foil, polyethylene terephthalate, and a metalized film. The shelf life of your products is determined by the material you use. While a metalized barrier film keeps your items fresh for 13 months, an aluminum foil layer does the trick for a whopping 20 months!
The polyethylene terephthalate keeps perishable items fresh for about two weeks to a month. It is used in packaging personal care products, foods, beverages, and other consumer goods.
The Inner Layer
The inner layer consists of the material that directly contacts the food; hence it must be FDA approved. The most commonly used material in stand-up pouches is linear low-density polyethylene since it is safe for direct food contact.
The material also allows you to heat seal your bags, preventing product tampering.
Are Polyethylene Stand-Up Pouch Packages Sustainable?
Polyethylene stand-up pouches are green since they’re recyclable. Even though they come in various colors, shapes, and sizes, they can be crushed and used to create other plastic products.
Moreover, polyethylene stand-up pouches can be reused — the reusability factor increases due to their seals and zippers. The customer can seal and reseal the packet, allowing them to use it multiple times to store other things.
According to environmentalists, one of the most effective ways to save the planet is to decrease the number of packaging materials. In the case of stand-up pouches, fewer resources – materials and energy – are used to produce them than to manufacture a plastic jar or glass bottle.
What’s more, it would take hundreds of stand-up pouches to fit where one massive, heavy-duty jar would go, making stand-up pouches landfill friendly.
Are Stand-Up Pouch Packages Child-Proof?
SYes, stand-up pouch packages can be are child-proof with the right construction. Child-resistant stand-up pouches can be re-closable or single-use. While re-closable packages are re-closed by the customer to retain child resistance, single-use packages are only child-proof until they’re opened.
Re-Sealable Stand-up Pouches
These pouches are also called recloseable lifetime child-resistant pouches since you can use them numerous times while maintaining with the same child-proof capabilities. They feature a two-step opening procedure. They come either as a pull to open pouch with outer tab, a pinch and rub mechanism, a hidden thumb pocket or an injection molded locking attachment They come as push and turn, a two-piece molding; a squeeze and turn package, which is a single-piece molding; or line up the arrows pack, where the consumer matches two fixed points on the closure and the package.
There’re also pharmacy zipper bags that consumers must use with both hands to open. Let’s not forget the child-guard push-pin zipper bags where the customer has to insert a pin, opening the sliding zipper.
Single-Use Stand-up Pouches
Most single-use bags are hard to open unless with a knife or scissor. They are popular with single servings of drugs such as medical cannabis. A single-use stand-up pouch is child-resistant as long as it hasn’t been opened.
Manufacturers add a two-step opening process to the packaging and a paper label that kids can’t easily peel off.
Are Child-Resistant Glass Jars a Good Choice?
Yes and no. Child-resistant glass jars can be both good and bad. They’re good because how else will dangerous chemicals be stored out of reach of children?
Child resistance will use a child’s lack of advanced motor skills, strength, or knowledge to determine how to open a confusing cap to create the packaging. For instance, glass bottles with push and turn caps need a mix of downward and rotating force to open.
Also, a glass bottle may include an aluminum or paper lid that must be opened to access cleaning supplies or medication, and children under 52 weeks can’t get past the seals due to their soft fingernails.
However, glass jars are bulkier and heavier to transport than plastics, so your shipping and storage costs will be higher. Also, glass manufacturing requires a lot of resources due to the high temperature required for processing. What’s more, glass is brittle and rigid, and when it breaks, it can harm a child.
Keep in mind that it takes 1,000,000 years for glass to biodegrade, compared to 1,000 years for plastic,it’s not biodegradable and it fills landfills faster than plastics.
Are Child-Proof Metal Tins Good for Cannabis?
Yes, child-proof metal tins are great for cannabis. The top and bottom of the tin feature tin-plate steel, and an injection molded-polypropylene insert is pressed into both tin plates. The inserts are threaded to ensure the consumer opens the package only by pushing down and turning.
Tin packaging is one of the most environmentally friendly materials since it can be taken back to the production cycle without quality loss. For instance, in 2018, Germany had a tin-plate packaging recycling rate of 90.4%.
Why Are Mylar Bags Popular for Child-Proof Flexible Packaging?
Mylar bags are better than most packaging materials due to their smell-proof resilience, environment protection property, durability, and resilience. Child-resistant mylar bags combine more than one locking mechanism to create a secure opening system and can be reusable or non-reusable.
Non-reusable mylar bags are used only once and have permanent sealing. The sealing mechanism has a heat-sealing section. The consumer needs to bend the package at a specific section to tear it.
Reusable mylar bags contain a flexible opening mechanism and can be used multiple times. The various types include zipper, push pin, and pinch types. Mylar bags are highly secure, and our broad category will provide you with different types, sizes, locking mechanisms, and colors to choose from.
What Are Some Uses for Stand-Up Pouches?
Food and drink regulators have approved stand-up bags for packaging liquids like ready-made cocktails and juice drinks. Retailers can display large quantities in their stores due to the flexible shape, and they’re cheaper to transport than bottles because of the reduced weight.
Stand-up pouches are also great for packaging coffee and tea. They safeguard the aroma of the contents as they safely keep humidity, oxygen, and dust out.
Additionally, stand-up pouches have high barrier properties that make them ideal for packaging food products, like baby food, requiring extra cleanliness. When a spout is included, the pouches make feeding a baby a walk in the park.
Stand-up pouches can also package sweets, snacks, food supplements, pet food and treats, and household essentials.
Using Stand-Up Pouch Packaging for Storing Perishables
Stand-up pouches keep oxygen out of the package, inhibiting aerobic spoilage bacteria growth. This extends the shelf-life of perishable goods, like seafood. It keeps the perishables fresh as they are transported from the processing plant to the grocer’s freezer and then to the consumer’s home.
The barrier also seals in flavor, nutrition, aroma, and freshness while keeping out odors, moisture, and vapor.
Protecting Your Cannabis With Mylar Packaging
Mylar bags have an opaque design that safeguards cannabis buds from exposure to light. This helps cannabis keep its color, taste, potency, and odor. And because mylar bags are good at keeping oxygen and humidity out, they maintain the freshness and quality of the buds.
Moreover, mylar bags don’t absorb odor, meaning mylar is the perfect option for storing marijuana.
Into the bargain, mylar bags are robust and won’t tear. Therefore, cannabis buds will be safe, and the bag can be reused for more buds.
When it comes to packaging cannabis products, our mylar packaging is the best fish in the sea.
Need Stand-Up Pouch Packages? We’ve Got You Covered
You’ve seen all the benefits you stand to gain by using stand-up pouch packages for your products. Stand-up pouches are reusable, recyclable, energy-efficient, cheap to transport, landfill friendly, cheap to make, and ideal for perishable foods and drinks.
Whether you sell cannabis products, coffee, tea, drinks, or food, this packaging will suit your needs. Get our black, child-resistant stand-up pouches wholesale.
Sources
Global Stand-up Pouches Market Size, Share, Trends, 2026 | Fortune Business Insights
Tinplate packaging reaches 90.4% recycling rate in Germany | World Aerosols