Running a coffee business can be an extremely fun and creative endeavor, from inventing delicious new blends to designing the coffee bag packaging. A coffee bag is a container used for shipping and storing coffee. Coffee beans are usually transported in large jute sacks, while coffee sold to consumers may be packaged as beans or ground coffee in a small, sealed plastic bag. This guide focuses on the selection of labelling equipment for sachets of coffee.
Types of Coffee Bags
Side-Gusseted Coffee Bag
Side-gusseted bags are typically tall, rectangular coffee bags that have more vertical real estate for labeling. Take advantage of the front and back panels by applying full labels to either side of the bag, or go minimal by applying a small custom shape label to the front.

Square Bottom Coffee Bag
Square bottom bags are sturdy and provide lots of surface area for your coffee bag labels. Because the front and back panels remain relatively flat after filling, the flexibility of your chosen label material is not as imperative as other coffee bag styles. Therefore, you have more freedom to choose a unique label material.

Stand-Up Coffee Pouch
Stand-up pouches spend a lot of time working on their comedy routine on the side, but you should be able to wrangle some for a gig as your coffee bags. Because these pouches do not have gusseted sides, the front and back panels curve and flex when filled. Therefore, you’ll either need to label the bags before filling with a flexible label material that will stay adhered to the curves and dips, or apply a smaller label to the flattest part of the filled bag.

Aluminum Foil Coffee Bag
Aluminum foil bags are the most common type of coffee bag found in commercial grocery stores.

Poly Side-Gusseted Coffee Bags
Poly side-gusseted bags are used for large fulfillment orders, usually for coffee shops and businesses with caffeine-addicted employees. These large coffee bags provide considerable surface area for labeling, but sometimes less is more with packaging of this size.

Coffee bag labeling machine selection
For automatic coffee bag labelling VKPAK recommends the automatic flat top self-adhesive labeling machine and for semi-automatic coffee bag labelling VKPAK recommends the VK-T802 semi-automatic flat labelling machine.
Automatic Coffee Bag Labeling Machine
With automatic flat top self-adhesive labeler you can easily apply labels, barcodes, stickers, price tages on any flat packaging product with a thickness of up to 50mm, a width of 320mm and a length of up to 400mm. The universally applicable labeller can process paper as well as plastic labels directly from the reel. Alternatively you can also process sigils with a transparent or untransparent base. The labels can be taken from the folded carrier strap or from the reel.

The steadily expanding specialty coffee market for home and office brewers requires attractive and functional packaging. One of the most common solutions is the standup coffee pouch (doypack) which comes in many different shapes and sizes, usually containing an aroma valve for customers to experience a whiff of your most exquisite coffees without opening the pouch. Accurately informing coffee aficionados and traders about the contents of your coffee pouches is important and best accomplished by having a automatic flat top self-adhesive labeling machine automatically and reliably apply detailed content labels onto your your coffee pouches. The table-top labeler unit automatically applies adhesive labels with a throughput of 4000 per hour. Applicable products include plastic cards, letters, pressure lock or vacuum sealed bags, print magazines, CD/DVD Cases, carton packaging for perfume or pharmacology (included folded boxes) etc. – in short, any flat objects. The automatic flat labeler can operate standalone or be integrated into a production line. Several flat labeler units can be arranged in a chain to form a complete labeling assembly line to apply, barcodes, serial numbers, seals, price tags or any other type of label or seal including scratchoff labels.
Optional devices: automatic feeding, coding machines, other customised requirements
Semi-Automatic Coffee Bag Labeling Machine
VK-T802 Semi Automatic Flat Labeling Machine:

- Application of suction stickers labeling method to achieve the various parts of the plane on the labeling, such as coffee bag, cosmetics flat bottles, boxes, plastic cover labeling and so on.
- Change overlying scale mechanism, suitable for uneven surface labeling, such as concave flat, circular surface labeling and so on.
- Changing fixture, suitable for a variety of irregular work piece labeling.
- Optional ribbon printer or inkjet printer, print production date on the label and batch number, to achieve a code – Labeling Integration.
Summary
The choice of equipment for the labelling of coffee bags is similar to that for the labelling of bags, with a flat labelling machine recommended. Of course for non-flat coffee bags (such as the Poly Side-Gusseted Coffee Bags mentioned above) custom parts are required to complete the labelling process on top of the standard flat labeling machine.
If you have any questions about labeling machines for coffee bags, please contact VKPAK. We not only offer quality equipment, we listen, we adapt to your needs. We offer advice, we look for the best approach to your project. We recommend the most cost effective equipment without sacrificing quality. It is our responsibility to ensure that all our customers receive every attention to detail to make the installation successful, cost-efficient and profitable.