We spent three days at the Sabah International Food Expo (SIFEX 2026) in Kota Kinabalu this April, with our pouches, boxes, stickers and labels on the table. We expected questions about materials and print quality.
Instead, one question came up more than every other question combined.
“Can you really do 100 pieces?”
Small food brands asked it. Established manufacturers asked it. Distributors asked it on behalf of the brands they carry. Almost everyone who stopped at our booth eventually asked some version of the same thing — and most of them looked surprised when we said yes.
That surprise is the interesting part.
The problem nobody in Sabah could solve
What we heard, repeatedly, was that brands in East Malaysia simply could not find a packaging supplier willing to take a small order. The minimums they were being quoted ran into the thousands.
Think about what that means for a new brand. You have a sauce recipe, or a snack, or a coffee blend. You want to test it — a few shops, a weekend market, an online launch. You need maybe 200 pouches.
Your supplier says 5,000 minimum.
That is not a packaging decision. That is betting your entire launch budget on a product nobody has bought yet.
Why most suppliers genuinely cannot go lower
This is not suppliers being difficult. It is how conventional printing works.
Offset and gravure printing require plates or cylinders made specifically for your artwork. That setup cost is the same whether you print 100 units or 10,000 — so the only way to make it viable is to spread it across a large run. At 200 pieces, the setup cost per pouch is absurd.
Digital printing has no plates. Nothing is made specifically for your job before printing starts, so a short run costs proportionally what it should. That single difference is the entire reason low minimums are possible.
What 100 pieces actually gets you
| Product | Minimum order |
|---|---|
| Stickers and labels | from 1 piece |
| Stand up pouches — 4 standard sizes, metallised, matte lamination | from 100 pieces |
| Boxes that fit our digital press | from 100 pieces |
| All other pouches — other types, custom sizes, materials or finishes | from 500 pieces |
| Larger boxes, offset printed | from 500 pieces |
Custom sizes and larger boxes still need offset, and those carry higher minimums — we would rather tell you that upfront than surprise you at quotation. There is more detail in our guide to packaging minimum order quantities.
Getting it to Sabah and Sarawak
Small orders ship to East Malaysia by courier and typically arrive within three to five days. For a 100-piece run that is usually the most practical route — no freight forwarding, no container timing, just a tracked parcel.
Production takes 7–14 working days for pouches and boxes, or 3–7 working days for stickers and labels. Add courier time on top, and a Sabah brand can go from approved artwork to packaging in hand without ever dealing with sea freight or a trip to the peninsula.
Start small, then scale
The brands that handle this well tend to follow the same pattern. Print 100–200 units. Put them in front of real customers. Find out whether the resealable zip matters, whether the label is legible on a shelf, whether the size is right.
Then commit to volume, once you are certain what you are committing to.
Low minimums are not about printing less. They are about being wrong cheaply, before being right expensively.
Thinking about your first run?
Send us your product details and we will tell you honestly what your minimum would be and what it would cost. WhatsApp +6012-517 7800 or visit our flexible packaging and sticker and label pages.