Did you know that most honeybees in a beehive are female? There are very few male bees, called drones, in each hive. The queen bee and all the worker bees are female. We learned this fun fact while speaking with Benny Wilkins, owner of ClearBags and beekeeper hobbyist. Benny learned to keep bees when he was 11 years old. He recalled laughing hysterically as he watched his father try to catch a hive that swarmed in their yard in Arizona. His father proved successful in his attempt, and the beekeeping began. For the next 3 years, until they moved to Missouri, the Wilkins family kept bees. Benny learned the trade. Their hives grew to 150, and they sold their honey for $2.00 a gallon.



Many years later, in 2010, Benny, now living in California, once again saw a swarm in his yard and decided to catch it. The bees were happy and full of honey, so he was able to simply scoop them up with his hands and shake them into a bee box. Just like that, "Benny's Honey" was born. For the last 10 years, Benny has been keeping bees. In addition to the bee boxes in his yard at home,  he also has some on the ClearBags property in California. The honey from these bees is referred to as "ClearBags Honey". Benny has never sold any of this honey; he prefers to give it away. He shares it with family, friends, and employees. Over the years, hundreds of people have benefited from a jar of Benny's Honey or ClearBags Honey.

Suffocation warning bags play a very important role in the packaging world. Some retailers even make using these bags a requirement when selling through them. As this blog is being written, there are no federally regulated criteria for when to use a suffocation warning bag. However, certain states have local laws requiring the use of these bags in specific situations. States that currently govern the use of suffocation warnings on bags are California, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Some major cities across the US have also followed suit, including Chicago and New York City.


Besides federal regulations, there are also company-specific enforced policies for using bags with suffocation warnings on them. One of the more popular services that require this is Amazon.com. Specifically, Amazon requires that any plastic bag with an opening of 5 inches or larger and at a thickness of 1 mil or less must also be labeled with a suffocation warning. To save you the trouble of printing out your own warning labels, we created pre-printed suffocation warning bags with the labels printed clearly on the bag in English, French, and Spanish.



The suffocation warning reads "To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this bag away from babies and children. Do not use in cribs, beds, carriages, or playpens. This bag is not a toy. The thin film may cling to nose and mouth and prevent breathing". Our suffocation warning label bags were designed with safety in mind while making sure they meet all of Amazon's standards. The size of the font also needs to meet certain legibility requirements depending on the size of the bag. The font size requirements for suffocation warning labels being sold through Amazon can be found here. External packaging, such as mailers or shipping containers, usually do not require suffocation labels due to their thickness. Any package with a thickness greater than 1 mil does not require a suffocation warning label.



With the growing availability of online retailer shipping services, the need for the correct packaging is imperative. We're confident that after looking through our collection of pre-printed suffocation warning label bags, you'll find exactly what you're looking for.

How To Package Loose Leaf Tea

The market for tea drinkers is changing and gaining more popularity as new generations divert away from coffee, soda, and other flavored drinks in favor of an iced or hot tea. According to the Tea Association of the USA, "more than one half of the American population drinks tea on any given day". With the increasing popularity of tea as the drink of choice, retailers are looking for professional packaging solutions that fit the product and all of its needs. It is vital that these solutions keep the tea fresh and the taste uncompromised.

Tell us a little about your company:

At Jessie’s Nutty Cups we make handcrafted peanut butter cups with deliciously Nutty flavor-profiles, like Dark Sea Salt and PBJ. Produced in Brooklyn NY, we make our delectably creamy peanut butter from freshly roasted peanuts, add Belgian Chocolate and voila, we’ve made you the perfectly Nutty, two-bite treat to interrupt your mundane Monday.

It all started when Jessie found a random peanut butter cup recipe online. While her first batch of peanut butter cups was good, she thought she could do better and it wasn't long before she realized there was quite a demand for quality peanut butter cups that go beyond the simple Peanut Butter and chocolate combination. Since then Jessie's Nutty Cups has turned into a flourishing business with a promise to maintain superior quality and to remain handmade to provide jobs for the community. These beautiful Nutty morsels make the perfect gift and are sure to put a Nutty smile on anyone's face, after all, they're just a bit Nutty!


What makes your product unique?

Peanut Butter and Chocolate... a combination that is hard to argue with. But generally when you buy a peanut butter cup, it is mass produced, with limited variations, and a dry/pasty, overly sweet center. The variety of peanut butter cups provided by the major companies is also sadly lacking. Although you'll find milk, dark or white chocolate options, the only real variety results from offering the same product in different shapes and sizes.

But it doesn't have to be that way, and Jessie's Nutty Cups provides an alternative with heart. At Jessie's Nutty Cups, we provide quality, handcrafted variations on the traditional peanut butter cup. We start by roasting raw VA peanuts and then transform them into an all natural, delectably gooey, lightly sweetened peanut butter filling made with real ingredients that people recognize and can find on their kitchen shelves. We use sustainably produced Belgian Chocolate to complement our freshly roasted peanut butter filling, and make sure to temper our chocolate to give it that pleasing chocolaty 'snap'.



How do you package your products and what ClearBagsⓇ products do you use?

We offer our Nutty Cups in packs of 2 and 4 as well as gift boxes of 8 or 15. We’ve worked with Clearbags on our 2 & 4 packs since 2016 when we first discovered their clear soft fold boxes fit 4 of our cups perfectly. At that time we were trying to get Jessie’s Nutty Cups into the wholesale market, for which we thought packs of 2 would work best, and sales would be increased if the final consumer could actually see what was inside. We worked with one of their specialists to special order a round of unprinted 2 packs, which we could then sticker with our logo and ingredients, but it wasn’t long before we realized it would be even better if we could get everything pre-printed. Clearbags now makes and prints the packaging for all our flavors of 2-packs and 4-packs, and quite honestly, we couldn’t be happier with the result.

 

Where do you sell your products?

Jessie’s Nutty Cups can be found nationwide at over 100 specialty and gourmet retailers such as Lolli&Pops, Murray’s Cheese and Bedford Cheese Shop to name a few. You can also purchase them online via our website, jessiesnuttycups.com, or Goldbelly. For a full list of retailers (we do our best to keep it up to date!), please visit https://www.jessiesnuttycups.com/nutty-retail-locations

How long have you been working with ClearBags and how does ClearBags help you succeed?
We’ve been working with ClearBags for just about 4 years now. If it wasn’t for them, I honestly don’t know what our packaging would look like, and I know for a fact that part of why our Nutty Cups sell so well is because we are able to showcase them in ClearBags beautiful clear boxes. ClearBag’s Representatives are extremely responsive and have helped us make simple changes, like the address or slight ingredient change, quickly and easily. Re-ordering has also been easy every time.


What one piece of packaging advice would you give to other business owners?

Take the time to really figure out what you want your packaging to look like from the start and invest in getting it right rather than settling for a cheaper, less appealing option and rebranding at a later time. It will help define your brand from the start and save you money in the long run. Packaging really can make or break your sales.

How can people connect with you?

You are always more than welcome to connect with us via our social channels: instagram.com/jessiesnuttycups and facebook.com/jessiesnuttycups. If you have specific questions or inquiries, please don’t hesitate to email us at info@jessiesnuttycups.com