The Ultimate Guide to Food-Grade Bulk Bags

This means that it’s important to look further than a simple statement of FDA compliance because a supplier can say just about anything! Here are three key things to keep in mind: 

• A supplier’s certifications: If a supplier has certain credentials, you can trust that their bags are food grade. (We’ll go into more detail about the certifications to look for later.) 
• The presence of third-party audits: These audits help ensure that a facility exhibits zero contamination. 
• The importance of a clean manufacturing environment: Did you know that bag contamination usually happens after initial bag creation? It’s not enough for a bag’s components to be clean—the environment matters too! Both certifications and third-party audits can help give you the confidence you need to proceed with a food-grade bulk bag order. 

Let’s break it down: 

• The FDA regulates raw material (e.g., resin) rather than the actual bag. 
• This means that products and plants will not be FDA-approved—just the raw materials will. 
• Ultimately, there’s no such thing as a “standard” food-grade bag—and as it turns out, most bulk bags meet FDA requirements. That means to keep your processes pure and your customers safe, it’s time to do better. 

Why? As it turns out, noncompliant “food-grade” bags are inherently risky, and the ramifications of using them can be disastrous. 

When a bag is truly food grade, that means that the bag’s manufacturer has invested a great deal of time, money, and energy in avoiding contamination of any kind. A food-grade bag supplier will also focus on controlling allergen and heavy metal contamination in their plants. (Remember, contamination isn’t always simply bag-related!) 

When a bag isn’t truly food grade (and is perhaps just technically “approved”), this means you can’t really know anything for sure about the environment in which a bag was manufactured, which leaves open ample opportunities for dangerous contamination.

A variety of different standards provide accreditation for food-grade FIBCs. These standards include: 

• Brand Reputation through Compliance Global Standard (BRCGS), formerly British Retail Consortium (BRC)
• Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)
• American Institute for Baking International (AIB International), formerly AIB

It’s also key to realize that different applications of food processing may require different FIBCs. Processing fruits may require different bag specifications than spices or grains may, for example. 

Think of it this way: There are hundreds of different vehicles on the market, each made for a very specific purpose (e.g., cars, utility trucks, ambulances, dump trucks, tractor-trailers) and a very specific purpose (e.g., commuting to work, repairing a phone line, transporting a patient, delivering rock, shipping goods). In the same way, an FIBC can be made for a very specific type of product and meet very specific purposes. One such purpose? To mitigate or reduce contamination risk. 

Looking for food-grade certifications such as BRCGS or AIB International can help you know that a bag has been made and manufactured according to standards that are the same across multiple industries. 

A good bag supplier should be able to help you understand the right certification for your product, application, and goals.

If we were looking for a food-grade bag supplier, here’s exactly what we would check for: 

• A history of serving customers that require food-grade solutions
• Supplier certifications (hint: ask your supplier if they can provide audits/certifications on request)
• Supplier experience with overcoming and resolving compliance or safety issues
• Supplier confidence that they can supply the packaging you need at the same level of certification for the plant you have and the plant your customers have

You may be wondering: Does location matter? Ultimately, not for packaging; the majority of packaging is manufactured overseas. For safety and compliance, the clock starts ticking as soon as the packaging actually comes into contact with food. 

We’ve got good news for you: We can do all of that for you—and more.

How? 

• Because we manufacture and distribute our own bags, we have a level of hands-on expertise that our competitors simply can’t match. 
• We pride ourselves on having in-country managers that work with our overseas plants. This in-person, physically-there knowledge is valuable—and unusual. 
• Our managers are able to facilitate any design changes or enhancements a customer needs and make sure they meet the relevant safety standards. 
• We run on a quality control mindset. Just because a manufacturing plant passes an inspection during an audit doesn’t mean they maintain the same level of quality and compliance when the auditor leaves. We have our own local employees in our manufacturing plants overseas on a regular basis to ensure those levels are maintained at all times. 
• We’ve invested time and training into trusted results. We have material science engineers, manufacturing experts, and teams with years of experience to make sure that everything goes according to plan. 
• We’ve enhanced our portfolio of packaging solutions with highly engineered bulk bag options (e.g., high-quality chemical bags, pharma bags) that can be used to eliminate many issues for our clients. 

We’ve also invested in myriad systems and plants in multiple countries. If a mass event—say, a worldwide pandemic—shuts things down in one country, we have accredited suppliers in other countries to back up supply to keep your operations running. 

Trust us: Great packaging is not the place to pinch pennies. In fact, pennies can ultimately cost dollars and plenty of stress on the back end. 

Don’t believe us? We’ve seen it time and time again: Manufactures underestimate the disastrous consequences of opting for cheap, noncompliant, poor-quality bulk bags. These include: 

• Cheap bags tend to split at the worst possible times, resulting in mishaps, including expensive seam failures that result in lost product and production delays due to downtime.
• Cheap bags don’t have built-in UV protection, which means they will degrade and fail when subjected to long-term exposure to light.
• Untrustworthy suppliers can promise specifications then underdeliver with actual bags (e.g., bait and switch) that are thinner or don’t have the needed capabilities.

It’s just not worth it to invest in cheap bags. Instead, form an invaluable long-term relationship with a high-quality bag manufacturer and supplier you can trust. Find a manufacturer who has invested in accreditation and audits and has built a history of providing safe, worth-it bags that help companies meet their goals. 

At Conitex Sonoco, we’re dedicated to going the extra mile to make sure your bags are safer, sturdier, more sustainable, and ready to work strategically for you. Contact our friendly FIBC experts today to get a custom quote for your company!