Kraft carrier bag: the last thing your customer takes away

The three F&G references cover standard takeaway use. The paper weight is the same — 70 g — what changes is the volume, and therefore the load.

The price gap between the smallest and largest kraft bag is €0.026 — three cents. Always taking the large one « to be safe » therefore costs little, but an oversized bag creases, tips and carries badly: it is the impression that suffers, not the margin.

The debate is often ideological. In practice it is settled on a technical criterion.

• Kraft suits anything dry or already wrapped: sandwiches, pastries, closed containers, boxes. It stands up, stores flat, and recycles in the paper and board stream.
• HDPE is still the right call when the contents can wet the bottom: poorly sealed saucy dishes, sweating bottles, fresh produce. A kraft bag whose bottom gives way just as the customer opens their car cancels out the whole image benefit.

The trap to avoid: using kraft for a hot dish in a non-airtight tray. Condensation soaks the bottom within minutes and the bag fails at the worst moment. In that case, either seal the container better — see our comparison tray or caterer's container — or switch to plastic.

The bag is a bulky but cheap product: the classic mistake is ordering small to save space, then running out on a Friday night.

Count one takeaway order = one bag, and add 10%: there is always the torn one, the doubled one for a heavy load, the extra one given away. A pack of 250 covers two to three days for a business doing 100 orders a day. For a full week, count three packs of your main size. Store flat and dry. Kraft absorbs ambient moisture and loses its stiffness: a bag kept in a damp store room tears at the handles straight out of the pack. One last practical point: keep all three sizes, even if the middle one is 80% of your volume. Serving a coffee and a croissant in a 32 cm bag looks careless, and three cents saved does not make up for it. What the bag says about your business It is the only consumable in your order that travels outside your premises. It crosses the street, waits on a car seat, ends up on a living-room table. On a day with 150 takeaway orders, that is 150 appearances in public. That is also why printing pays off faster on a bag than on any other medium: our article on the

sets out the thresholds and sizes. For the rest of the kraft family, the

• guide to kraft packaging
• covers the materials, while the
• cutlery pouch

deals with what goes inside.

Which carrier bag size for a takeaway order ?

The 22 × 11 × 28 cm for a single portion, the 26 × 17 × 26 cm for a full meal, and the 32 × 21 × 30 cm for a family order. The price gap between smallest and largest is three cents: cost should not drive the choice — the fact that an oversized bag creases and carries badly should.

Can a hot dish go in a kraft bag ?

Yes, provided the container is properly sealed. The risk is not heat but condensation: a saucy dish in a poorly sealed tray soaks the bottom of the bag within minutes. In that case, an HDPE bag is the better choice.

What paper weight for a kraft carrier bag ?

70 g for standard takeaway use: that is what all three F&G sizes carry. Below that, the bag tears at the handles under a normal load; above it, you pay for strength that only serves unusually heavy loads.

Is the kraft carrier bag recyclable ?

Yes, in the paper and board stream, provided it is not soiled with grease or sauce. That is worth telling the customer: a clean bag gets sorted, a greasy one goes to incineration like ordinary waste.

When is it worth printing your bags ?

Sooner than for any other medium, because the bag is the only consumable that leaves your premises and travels in public. At 150 orders a day, that is 150 appearances of your name in the street — a cost per contact no other medium comes close to.