Stand-up zipper pouches for honey sachets: the film structure to ask your supplier for

A stand-up zipper pouch for sachets is a secondary pack. The sachet holds the honey. The pouch holds the sachets.

So the brief to your pouch supplier is different from a brief for a pouch that holds loose food. You need a printed outer layer for looks, a food-grade inner layer that seals well, a zipper that survives a month of use, a tear notch above the zipper, and a pouch strong enough that the sharp corners of 20 or 30 sachets do not poke through it. Put each of these in writing, then test printed samples filled with your real sachets before you place the bulk order.

That is the short answer. In the rest of this guide we go through the brief itself, line by line, with a few tests you can do at your own table.

I run a packaging company in Jaipur. We make multilayer blown film and tapes, and we ship to 20+ countries.

So we spend a lot of our day on film specifications. I am not a food technologist, though. The shelf life of your honey is decided by the sachet and your own tests, not by any outer pouch.

Why put sachets in a pouch at all?

Single-serve honey sachets suit gyms, hotels, tiffin services and online sellers who want a "try it" pack. Loose sachets are hard to sell on a shelf. They slip, they scatter in a bag, and each one is too small to carry the full label.

A stand-up pouch fixes all three.

It stands on the shelf like a small box, it keeps the remaining sachets together after the first one is used, and it gives you a big panel for the label and your brand.

What should the film structure be?

Most stand-up pouches in India are laminates. That means two or three films bonded together with adhesive, and each film does one particular job. We make film, so this is the part of the specification we know most about.

1. The outer layer carries the print. It is usually polyester (PET) or BOPP film, printed on the reverse side so the ink sits between the layers and does not rub off. A matt version gives a softer, paper-like look.
2. An optional middle layer adds barrier or shine. This could be metallised PET or aluminium foil. For a pouch of sachets, we would treat it as a design choice, because the sachet already protects the honey.
3. The inner layer is the sealant. It is usually a polyethylene film, often a blend we would call LLDPE, and it is the layer that melts and bonds when the pouch is sealed.

A paper-look pouch is the same idea, and I like it for gifting, with kraft paper as the outer layer and a plastic sealant inside.

We would ask the supplier to write the structure as a list, outside to inside, with the thickness of each layer in microns and the total weight in grams per square metre. "Three-layer pouch" on a quotation tells you nothing. A written layer list lets you compare two suppliers on the same terms, and it lets you check the next lot against the first.

Does the outer pouch have to be food grade?

I would treat the inner layer as food contact, yes. We give the same advice for every food pouch, whatever sits inside it.

Here is my reasoning. The FSS (Packaging) Regulations, 2018 (consolidated Version V, FSSAI, 2 April 2025) say in regulation 3(2) that any material which comes in direct contact with food, or is likely to, must be food grade. A honey sachet that leaks in a hot godown puts honey straight onto the inside of your pouch. That is "likely to" in my book.

For a laminate, regulation 3(12) says the layer that touches food, or is likely to, must meet the standards in the schedules. For polyethylene that is IS 10146. Every plastic layer of that kind must also pass the overall migration limit of 60 mg/kg or 10 mg/dm², tested under IS 9845 (regulation 4(4)(b)). And regulation 3(14) puts the duty to hold a NABL-accredited lab certificate for that layer on you, the food business, not on the pouch maker.

Two more lines from the same regulations matter for a printed pouch. Inks must conform to IS 15495 (regulation 3(9)). And the printed surface must not touch food (regulation 3(10)). Reverse printing inside a laminate keeps the ink away from both the customer's hands and the sachets.

The extra cost of a food-grade sealant is small.

The cost of a recall is not.

The zipper, the notch and the gusset

We think these three details decide whether the pouch is pleasant to use.

1. The zipper. Most pouches use a press-to-close polyethylene zipper sealed across the inside. Ask for the zipper type in writing, and ask whether it is placed far enough below the top that a customer can tear the top off without cutting into it.
2. The tear notch. A small notch on each side, above the zipper, lets the customer open the pouch by hand. The top strip above the zipper also shows that the pouch has not been opened before. Regulation 3(5) asks for food to be packed in a tamper-proof package, and this strip is the simplest way to show it.
3. The bottom gusset. This is the folded base that lets the pouch stand. A rounded bottom gusset suits light loads. If you pack many sachets and the pouch topples, ask about a K-seal or a flat-bottom style instead.

I would ask for a hang hole only if your retailers actually use pegs. A hole punched through a pouch that will sit on a shelf just weakens the top.

What must the label carry?

This is where a pouch earns its place, and where we see most artwork go back for changes.

Under the FSS (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020 (consolidated Version II, FSSAI, 29 December 2021), a pack with a surface area of 100 sq cm or less is exempt from some declarations on its own label: the ingredients list, the batch number, nutrition information, additives, the licence number and logo, and a few others (regulation 8(1)). The same line says these details must then be given on the multi-unit package. For a sachet smaller than 30 sq cm, the date of manufacture can also move to the multi-unit pack (regulation 8(1)(a)).

Your pouch is that multi-unit package. So the full label lives on the pouch. Regulation 4(8) adds that an outer container displayed for retail sale must carry all the declarations required on the inner package, unless the outer pack is transparent and the inner labels can be read through it.

I would plan the label panel before the artwork is final, because the printing cylinders are made from that artwork. Leave a clear space for the batch number and dates if you will print them at packing time. A label amendment comes into force on 1 July 2027, so ask your food-safety consultant what applies on the day your pouch is printed. Our guide to FSSAI labelling for sweet shops explains the general rules.

The brief I would send

Put these lines on your enquiry. We would send the same list to every supplier, us included, so the quotes can be compared fairly.

1. Pouch type, size (width x height x gusset in mm) and how many sachets it must hold.
2. Layer list from outside to inside, with microns per layer and total GSM.
3. Inner sealant layer to meet IS 10146, with an overall migration report under IS 9845 from a NABL-accredited lab.
4. Inks to meet IS 15495, reverse printed, with no print on the inside face.
5. Zipper type and position, and the tear notch position above it.
6. Bottom gusset style, and a hang hole only if you need one.
7. Seal strength target, and the method used to test it, for example ASTM F88 (ASTM International, revision F88/F88M-23).
8. Batch number on every carton of pouches, so a problem can be traced back.
9. Printed samples, not plain ones, for your own tests before bulk.

Five tests you can do before the bulk order

Ask for 50 printed samples and keep a box of your own filled sachets ready. I would want every food brand to run these before approving a pouch.

1. The corner test. Fill a pouch with the full count of sachets and shake it hard for a minute, like a courier van on a broken road. Then look inside with a torch. Sachet corners are sealed edges and they can be sharp. If they have scratched or pierced the inner layer, ask for a thicker sealant or rounded sachet corners.
2. The drop test. Close the zipper and drop the filled pouch from waist height onto a hard floor, on its base, its side and its top. Do it ten times. The side seals and the bottom gusset should hold.
3. The zipper test. Open and close the zipper as many times as a family would in a month. It should still click shut along its whole length.
4. The leak test. Cut one sachet open inside a pouch, close it and leave it overnight in a warm spot. Next morning, check the seals and the outside for any stickiness. Then wipe the inside with a white tissue. Colour on the tissue means you need to talk to your supplier about the ink and the laminate.
5. The smell test. Open a new pouch, put your nose inside and breathe in. A sharp solvent smell usually means solvent is still trapped in the laminate. Do not put food near it until the supplier explains it.

None of these replaces a lab report.

They catch the common faults in a day, before thousands of printed pouches reach your godown.

Where most first orders go wrong

When we look at film orders that go wrong, the common mistake is approving the pouch on a plain sample. A plain sample has no ink and no laminating adhesive smell, and it was often made on a different line. We always tell buyers to approve on a printed sample of the exact laminated structure.

The second mistake is sizing the pouch on paper. Sachets do not stack like cards. Fill the sample with the real count and check that the zipper still closes with a finger's width of space above the sachets.

Send your sachet size and the count per pouch to two or three suppliers with the brief above. I am sure the answers will tell you quickly who understands pouches and who only sells them.