Choose the Right To-Go Brown Paper Bag Easily
Whether you run a school canteen, manage procurement for a council facility, operate a corporate café, or supply a community-based food service, the brown paper bag sitting on your counter is doing more work than you might realise. It carries your product, communicates your values, and leaves an impression long after the transaction ends.
Choosing the wrong bag creates real operational problems: bags that split under load, sizes that don’t fit your containers, materials that aren’t aligned with your organisation’s sustainability commitments, or packaging choices that fall short of local council or government procurement requirements.
This guide walks you through every factor worth considering, so the next time your organisation places a bulk order for to-go brown paper bags, you’re making a well-informed, environmentally responsible decision.
Why the Right Brown Paper Bag Matters More Than You Think
In a B2B context, packaging is a procurement decision, not just a convenience. For schools with canteens, government-operated food facilities, childcare centres serving snack packs, or businesses with busy café and grab-and-go counters, the paper bag you choose affects:
Staff efficiency during service
Food integrity during transit
Environmental compliance and waste reporting
Your organisation’s public-facing sustainability image
Alignment with green procurement policies
A bag that tears, collapses, or can’t stand upright on its own leads to wasted product, frustrated staff, and dissatisfied customers. Equally, a bag sourced without regard for environmental standards undermines any sustainability commitment your organisation has made.
At Buyecogreen, we supply brown paper bags specifically suited to the operational demands of Australian institutions, businesses, and food service environments. Understanding what separates a good bag from the right bag starts with breaking down the key variables.
1. Understand the Size You Actually Need
Size is the most common source of errors when ordering paper bags in bulk. Too small and your containers won’t fit. Too large and bags slump, waste space, and present poorly at point of service.
Here’s a practical framework:
Small bags work well for single-item service: individual pastries, sandwiches, snack packs, or small bakery items. These are popular in school canteens and childcare centres where portioned snacks are distributed at scale.
Medium bags suit standard café and quick-service meal formats: a container plus a drink, or a couple of boxed items. These are the most frequently ordered size across office cafeterias and corporate food service.
Large bags are built for multi-item orders, family-sized meals, catering packs, or deliveries that include multiple containers. They’re commonly used in council-operated facilities, events catering, and food pantry distributions.
A key measurement to pay attention to is the gusset, which refers to the side expansion of the bag when open. A wider gusset means a bag can accommodate bulkier containers without straining at the seams. For organisations regularly packing square containers, meal boxes, or items with a wide base, the gusset width matters just as much as the bag’s overall height.
When ordering in volume, it’s worth trialling a small run first to confirm your containers, trays, and cups fit correctly before committing to a full pallet order.
2. Know Your GSM: Why Paper Weight Makes a Difference
GSM stands for grams per square metre, and it’s the standard measure of how thick and sturdy a paper bag is. Getting this right ensures your bags perform under real-world conditions.
For most food service and to-go applications, here’s a general guide to what different GSM ratings mean in practice:
70 to 90 GSM is suited to lighter loads such as single snacks, dry baked goods, or low-weight items. These work well for promotional pack-outs or canteen snack distributions where the bag doesn’t need to carry significant weight.
100 to 120 GSM is the workhorse range for standard food service. Strong enough to handle containers, small drink bottles, and multiple lighter items without tearing. This weight class is well suited to school canteens, café operations, and council food programs.
120 GSM and above is appropriate for heavier loads, multi-item orders, or situations where bags are carried over longer distances, such as outdoor catering events, market stalls operated by community groups, or bulk food pack distributions.
Buyecogreen’s to-go brown paper bags are manufactured from quality kraft paper, a material valued in commercial packaging for its natural strength and relatively low environmental processing footprint compared to bleached alternatives.
