800,000 Bags in 800,000 Seconds

How Carrier Bag Shop helped Anchor Butter save the British cheese sandwich!

Finding a balance between speed, price and quality is an ever-increasing challenge, and that is the problem creative content agency, whynot! were faced with before approaching us in January this year.

They were working on behalf of Anchor Butter for their Save our Sandwich campaign, which aims to promote Anchor’s cheddar cheese with a bus tour stopping at 100 different locations across the country.

Anchor will be dishing out samples of 800,000 cheese sandwiches over the next few months to anyone who signs their petition to save the beloved British cheese sandwich.

But they aren’t giving out these samples on a paper plate or napkin, but out of the 800,000 specially printed brown paper bags supplied by Carrier Bag Shop.

Our specially printed brown paper bags are currently touring the country with Anchor's campaign!
Our specially printed brown paper bags are touring the country with Anchor's campaign!

Over the past 24 months we have seen a rise in the number of customers who need packaging very quickly and we always do our best to meet their needs.

“Fast Track orders always require special attention as we need to make sure that we hit deadlines for orders already in production. The last thing we want is to rush and make mistakes, and we’ve now got great processes for rushed orders”, says Evette Johns, Head of Purchasing at Carrier Bag Shop.

The entire process had a very quick turnaround from everyone involved and the first delivery of the bags was made just 10 days after the initial enquiry.

We work with a global network of manufacturers, which is why we were able to provide the bags in such a short time scale.

“We were able to locate the volume required and a manufacturer that could work flat-out to print that number of bags in a short period of time”, says Lee Hunter, Sales Manager.

whynot! had originally taken the enquiry to the Far East where printing costs are known to be slightly lower, but delays caused by Chinese New Year inevitably meant that their bags would not arrive in time.

 “You can always find things that are less expensive” says Lee, “but something has to give; either the speed or the quality”.

We worked with a UK-based manufacturer to guarantee delivery for the timescale that whynot! needed.

They were printing 90,000 bags per day, with staff working extra hours to ensure that everything was done in the timescale.

The total order equated to just under 15 tonnes of paper, making it the largest volume we have done over a 10 day period.

“We are very lucky [that] we had the capacity to manufacture so quickly”, says Evette.

At Carrier Bag Shop, we pride ourselves on being very dynamic and believe it’s important that we are able to react to things quickly with the best option.

Lee thinks that this is one of our unique qualities and says that “it’s certainly one of the reasons our clients turn to Carrier Bag Shop”.

Whilst whynot!’s needs were met by the team at Carrier Bag Shop, the whole process of course was not short of its stressful moments!

“I had a sleepless weekend” says Lee.

“I knew the importance of the bags to the client and did not want to let them down”.

The bags were a success and whynot! received great feedback from Anchor.

The campaign is still ongoing and we have loved seeing our bags featured on social media!

We have loved seeing our bags on social media! (VIA TWITTER)

Although we are able to accommodate for last-minute orders such as this, for a smoother process, Evette always advises customers to think of the timeline in advance.

“The more time that somebody can give us, the better cost options we can source for them”, she says.


Have you ever left your packaging last-minute?

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