The Bag Broker vs MTPak Coffee: An Honest Comparison for Coffee Roasters

If you roast coffee and you’re choosing a packaging supplier, you’ll want an accurate picture before you commit. Your packaging affects your budget, your shelf appeal and the condition your coffee arrives in, so the comparison is worth getting right.

The Bag Broker and MTPak Coffee both come up in that search, so here is a straight, fact-based comparison of the two. We’ve written it ourselves, so naturally we think we come out ahead — but we’ve kept the numbers honest and corrected a few things other comparisons have got wrong about us along the way.

The Bag Broker and MTPak Coffee: an overview

The Bag Broker is a global packaging supplier. We hold stock and run local teams across the UK, Europe, Australia, Dubai and Taiwan, and we supply far more than coffee bags — boxes, cups and packaging for tea, pet food, protein, snacks and other food and lifestyle brands. Everything we stock is listed on our webshop, with the materials and the price shown up front.

It’s worth correcting two points here, because they appear in comparisons elsewhere. We are not an Australia-only business based in Melbourne; Australia is a small part of a worldwide operation. And we are not a coffee-only supplier; coffee packaging is one part of a much wider range.

MTPak Coffee is a manufacturer based in Shanghai, China, with local representatives in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Alongside coffee bags it offers boxes, cups and its PureLock range for green coffee. It’s a credible coffee-focused supplier — the comparison below is simply about which model serves a roaster better.

Range, stock and local delivery

This is where the two suppliers differ most.

Browse our website and you can see exactly what we sell, what it’s made of and what it costs. Every stock product is listed with its material structure and price. There’s no need to request a quote to find out the basics — the information is public. That matters when you’re comparing suppliers, because you can make a decision on facts rather than waiting on a sales reply.

More importantly, we hold local stock. Our warehouses across the UK, Europe, Australia, Dubai and Taiwan mean stock bags dispatch almost immediately. Next-day delivery is routine, and when a roaster has run out and is about to miss their own orders, our team has driven to the warehouse, picked the boxes and delivered them the same day. That’s not a marketing line — it’s something we’ve actually done, more than once.

That local presence also changes how problems get solved. If something isn’t right — even on a custom order — there’s a local team that can physically check the stock, assess the issue and sort it out on the ground. A single overseas manufacturing base, however good, can’t match that.

What’s included: duties, taxes and the Plastic Packaging Tax

There’s a cost to importing that doesn’t show up on the quote, and it catches a lot of roasters out. Order custom bags directly from a supplier based in China and you are the importer of record. That means you handle the customs clearance, you pay the import duties and local taxes, and in the UK you carry the Plastic Packaging Tax liability yourself.

An overseas-only supplier simply isn’t set up to do this.

MOQs and lead times: the honest version

Minimum order quantities are where roasters are most often misled, so we’ll be straight about it.

Technically, we can make as little as one bag. So can most suppliers. The question isn’t whether a low minimum is possible — it’s whether it’s worth it. At very low volumes the price per unit climbs steeply and the wait is the same, because custom coffee bags are produced in China whichever supplier you use. Advertising “from 200 units” sounds generous, but the per-unit cost at that volume rarely makes sense for a roaster.

We’d rather give you the honest trade-off. If you genuinely need 500 units, we’ll do it — but you’ll pay considerably more per bag. For most roasters the sweet spot sits around 2,000 units: enough volume for a quality product at a sensible price. We recommend the quantity that actually serves you, not the lowest number we’re allowed to print on a page. We’re not interested in winning a “lowest MOQ” headline at the customer’s expense.

For stock bags, of course, the MOQ question barely applies — because we hold them, you can order small quantities of side gusset bags, box bottom bags, stand-up pouches and flat pouches and have them almost immediately.

Printing and customisation

Both suppliers offer digital printing, rotogravure and stamping, and you’ll see various claims about print resolution and new equipment.

Here’s the reality: the digital printing technology is the same right across the industry. We use the same machines everyone else does. There is no proprietary advantage in the hardware — a “new printer” announcement is standard kit, not a breakthrough. What actually affects your finished bag is the quality of the artwork setup, the proofing and the people handling your file. So we’d point you to service and support rather than a specification race.

Sustainability: substance over slogans

Sustainability is genuinely central to how we operate, and we’d rather show it through what we’ve done than through invented labels.

The Bag Broker has been CO2 neutral since 2021. Every product we’ve introduced since 2022 has been designed to be recycled, and our goal is to produce only recyclable materials by 2030. Recyclable and compostable lines are no longer a niche for us — they’re now among our best-selling categories. We also put real money into the supply chain, pushing our factories to invest and funding the testing of new materials and ideas, because that’s how the materials actually improve.

A word on material names. The industry is full of branded names that sound sustainable but describe no real material — anyone can invent one. The materials themselves are fixed and finite: kraft paper, PLA, wood pulp and plant starches, recyclable mono-PE, high-barrier PE/EVOH/PE. We describe our products by their actual material structure, published on the shop, so you know what you’re buying and how to dispose of it. With EU rules moving toward all packaging being recyclable by 2030, roasters need verifiable materials, not marketing.

The Bag Broker vs MTPak Coffee at a glance

Which supplier is right for you?

MTPak Coffee is a capable coffee-focused manufacturer, and for some roasters it will be a fine fit.

But if you want transparent pricing and materials you can check before you buy, local stock with next-day or even same-day delivery, a genuinely wider product range, honest advice on order quantities, and a local team that fixes problems in person, The Bag Broker is the stronger partner. We’d rather earn your business with accurate information than with a headline number — and that’s exactly how we’ve written this comparison.