Paul tours a Chinese packaging factory with representative Anki, watching automated production of multi-layer plastic bags with up to four-color printing and zippers. Bags cost around $0.04 each for 10,000-unit orders, with a 5,000-piece minimum and 20-25 day lead times. The factory also makes biodegradable options.
Yeah, yeah, Elon Musk is— I'm a fan of Elon Musk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, us too, us too.
I am a fan of you. This is Paul, this is Fabri-Tec, and I'm going to show you guys how packaging is made. Let's go! This is the beauty of automation. Compounding happens when you take two materials and combine them into one. So it starts off as this basic roll of plastic and it runs into the machine where it gets combined with this black material over here. So now the two plastics are being introduced to one another, and as they run for Over long, atop my head, they come down to here where they're finally combined and passing through this machine, they come out on the other end as a finished product right over here. Same machine, but now we're compounding with aluminum and this is the printed packaging and it spits out on the other side as a compounded material. So everything on that roll has both the plastic and the aluminum that's going together. Have you ever seen how printing on packaging is done? It's one of the most impressive feats of innovation in packaging. And if you actually look, you can see that it all starts with a roll of plastic being unspooled and black ink being applied. That's the first layer of ink that's being printed onto the plastic, and it forms the lettering. If we continue, we get to the section with blue ink where the blue is being applied onto the packaging and it forms the primary color, and it's passed overhead and goes on to the next section where we have the third color being applied. In this case, it's red ink. And over here, all of the gunk is being filtered out actively at every single step in the process. Finally, this packaging is four colors in total. So the last color is being applied right here. And in this case, it's a white. And it goes overhead onto the last section where it's being dried off all the way up top, comes down over here, and It's being spun into these big rings that are then placed on these pallets over here. And this is what they look like when they're done. The end goal is to have a finished package that looks a little something like this, with aluminum on the inside and fully sealed.
And it's sealable as well.
So what we just saw in the other room is the plastic being rolled up and printed on, and now it's being unrolled and it's going to go into cutting. This is actually both sides of the packaging in one roll. Over here it passes through, so where this yellow tape is, is where it's actually folding into Half. As it moves along, it goes to this machine which creates the sealed edge so that nothing can get out along the sides. And then over here, the sealed edge so that nothing gets out from the bottom. And when it keeps going, over here is where it gets the zipper along the top. And finally, as we keep moving all the way through to the ends, there's a blade that's cutting each unit one by one as a fully finished product. And he's here to check for any quality control errors to make sure that all of the packaging is perfect. And that's how it's done. This is not a sticker. It's one of the cleanest printing jobs I've ever seen. Extremely, extremely detailed. And it's 100% a part of the packaging. It's perfectly compounded into the aluminum. Really impressive.
Thank you.
Okay. So what would it cost to make a bag like this for a t-shirt or a hoodie or something like that?
0.05%. Okay.
So 5 cents per bag. And what about the MOQ? What's the MOQ for something like this?
5,000.
5,000.
Yeah.
Would you be willing to do less?
No. No.
And do you guys include all of the printing and the zipper as well?
Yes, the price already include that.
So it's the full finished product, print on the front, print on the back?
Yes.
And could you do multiple colors?
Uh, usually 4 colors most.
4 colors, you can do up to 4 colors on this?
Okay, very cool.
What would it cost for something like this?
The quantity for 10,000 pieces, the price is about, uh, 4%.
4 cents. And how much for 500 pieces? Digital?
500, maybe it's, uh, 8 cents.
8 cents per unit?
Yeah.
Okay. All right.
I find that aluminum stuff like this is very cool. Maybe a little bit less for food and liquids, but if I wanted to make something like this, but for a t-shirt, so if I wanted to make a bag like this, but out of aluminum like this, what would be the cost? Maybe roughly, it could be rough.
The roughly, I think will be a more expensive because it's aluminum foil, the material, right? Price will be like, like 5 cents also.
5 cents?
Yes.
And MOQ?
MOQ is also 5,000 pieces.
Okay. If I wanted to make a bag like this, how long would it take for sample?
10 to 15 days.
10 to 15 days. And what about for production?
20 to 25 working days.
20 to 25 days.
Yes.
So do you guys do sustainable packaging as well?
Yes, we supply it.
Do you have an example of that?
Yeah, this is mine.
Okay, so what is this made out of?
POA.
Okay, wow.
It's biodegradable crypto paper.
Okay, well, thank you so much for having me, Paul. Thank you, thank you. You're a legend. Thank you very much, Anki. Thank you so much.
