Story behind the bag: from labels to printing

Can you tell us a bit about Les Fermes du Ravillon?

Les Fermes du Ravillon is an organisation of six farmers. We produce various kinds of grains, like lentils, quinoa, chickpeas and so on, but flour and pasta too. We’ve been selling our grains for ten years now. We do everything ourselves and we only sell what we produce.

What type of bags do you use?

Nowadays we use 500 gr and 1 kg bags. It’s a glossy white bag that we can seal, with a round window to display the product.

We deliberately chose white because you see very few white bags on the shelves. Direct sellers tend to go for kraft brown. We think white is more elegant, and it stands out better.

Also nice to know, in the beginning we had a matt bag. When we switched to printed bags, we opted for glossy white. The label was shiny, and this way we got the same effect with printing.

You used to stick labels on your bags. Tell us about that. 

In the beginning, we had opted for labels, because at that time we didn’t have enough volumes to do a lot of printing. We started out like that. It wasn’t difficult, but it took so much time. We were doing about 100 bags an hour.

We attached two labels to each bag, on the front and back. And we had a window in one of the labels. That meant we had to be extra precise but on the other hand, we were able to position the labels properly and the bags did not differ too much.

At a certain point, you switched from labels to printing. Why did you make the switch? And how did you find it? 

When we started to have bigger volumes, it wasn’t possible to carry on using labels. And we couldn’t find any more volunteers to do it :-). In addition, the printed bags cost us less than unprinted bags plus labels.

How did your customers react? 

In the beginning, we had positive responses to the visual. We didn’t have any adverse reactions to the fact that we’d switched to printing. It didn’t really change anything. For customers the difference was not that great, but of course we saw the difference.

What is your advice to others? What did you learn in this process? 

We had a few surprises because the first time we had our logo printed, the colours didn’t match the labels exactly. That happened because we didn’t understand each other properly to start with. We had asked for a printed sample of the bag so we could make improvements, but that isn’t how you work.

In the end, we sent you our labels for the next print run. You looked at the original label, adapted the colours of the design and did every to make the final printing as close to the label as possible.

So if other clients work with labels, they should send them to you, because you really know how to make the conversion. That changed things for us. We got the end result we wanted, and we’re very satisfied.

left: printing – right: label

Baginco Tip

If you’re able to visit us, you can come and approve the colours during printing. Interested? Don’t hesitate to contact us!