To quote a spout pouch accurately, a supplier needs four fields: the product and its fill route, the barrier it needs, the spout and cap, and the filling-line format. Add finished width × height, fill volume and an order quantity, and the rest — laminate structure, seal design, test documents — is engineering work the supplier should do for you. This checklist walks through each field so your RFQ returns a buildable structure instead of a round of clarifying questions.
1. State the product and fill route first
The biggest driver of a spout pouch is what goes inside it and how it is filled. Foldveil's spout pouches serve beverage, sauce, jelly, detergent and personal-care refill programs, but the laminate that suits a cold-filled cleaning-product refill is not the one a hot-filled juice needs.
Tell your supplier:
- The product, including whether it is oil-based, acidic, alcoholic or a detergent — chemistry changes the film and seal
- Target shelf life
- How your co-packer fills it: cold/ambient, hot fill, or retort
The fill route changes the structure more than almost any other input:
| Fill route | What happens | What it forces on the pouch |
|---|---|---|
| Cold / ambient fill | Product is filled at room temperature | Least demanding; standard laminates are usually workable |
| Hot fill | Product is heated before filling (commonly around 85–95 °C) and cools inside the sealed pouch | Laminate and seal must hold heat and the partial vacuum that forms on cooling |
| Retort / sterilisation | The sealed pouch is sterilised under pressure and heat | Retort-grade laminate, a high-barrier layer and a retortable spout and cap |
If you do not know your fill temperature, ask your co-packer. It is the fastest way to avoid a pouch that passes a lab test but fails on the line.
2. Barrier: give a shelf-life target, not a guessed film number
OTR (oxygen transmission rate) and WVTR (water-vapour transmission rate) are properties of a finished laminate, not of a product family. They are confirmed from a test report for your exact structure, so the useful thing to send is the product's sensitivity and shelf-life target — and let the supplier propose the structure and the test values. A citrus-juice refill needs a far stronger oxygen barrier than a hand-soap refill.
If your product is a dry powder or granule rather than a liquid or puree, a stand-up zipper pouch is usually the better format. For how barrier, zipper and spout sit together inside a broader pouch spec, see our stand-up pouch spec sheet.
3. Specify the spout and cap the consumer actually touches
The fitment is the interface your customer handles every day, so specify it as precisely as the film:
- Spout bore and diameter
- Cap format: screw cap, flip-top, or a tamper-evident closure
- Child-resistant closure if the product needs one
- Spout placement and orientation (top, corner, side)
If you already have an approved cap, share it; a supplier can often match an existing fitment so your filling line and consumer expectations stay unchanged.
4. Confirm the filling-line format
Spout pouches arrive two ways, and the difference changes the quote:
- Pre-made spouted pouches — filled as supplied; simpler if your line applies caps to finished pouches
- Rollstock for form-fill-seal — film and spouts supplied separately and formed, filled and sealed on your machine
Confirm with your co-packer which format your line runs before you request a structure, because it determines spout orientation, seal geometry and the film web.
5. The four fields that start a quote
Send these four, plus finished dimensions and quantity, and the supplier can do the rest:
- Product and fill route (cold, hot fill or retort)
- Barrier need (shelf-life target and product sensitivity — not guessed OTR/WVTR numbers)
- Spout and cap format
- Filling-line format (pre-made pouch or rollstock)
- Finished width × height, fill volume and order quantity
Foldveil quotes from this simple spec. Price, MOQ, samples and lead time are made-to-order and confirmed in the formal quotation — there is no fixed public price list.
6. Food-contact documents: ask before you commit
If the pouch touches food, the document pack matters as much as the film. In the EU, food-contact materials sit under the framework Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, which sets general safety and inertness principles, and plastic layers under Commission Regulation (EU) No 10/2011, which sets migration limits and authorised substances. For US-bound products, ask about FDA food-contact status for the exact structure.
Foldveil confirms certifications and compliance per factory, material and production run, and shares available documentation with the quote. State your target market up front so the document scope is checked against the right regulation.
Your spout pouch RFQ checklist
- Product and chemistry (oil, acid, alcohol, detergent)
- Fill route and temperature (cold, hot fill, retort)
- Shelf-life target
- Spout bore, diameter and cap format
- Tamper-evident or child-resistant requirements
- Filling-line format (pre-made pouch or rollstock)
- Finished width × height, fill volume and quantity
- Target market (EU, US, both)
Ready to quote it? Send the list through the RFQ form and we will come back with a structure, the document scope and a formal quotation.
This guide is buyer education, not legal advice — food-contact and labelling requirements should be checked for your specific product and market.