Ribbon for a gift box is an aesthetic and a brand-signalling decision. Ribbon for a food pack is an aesthetic decision that sits inside a regulatory structure, a machine environment and a set of physical tests that do not apply anywhere else in decoration trim. Buyers who bring a gift-box brief to a food programme and then wonder why the quotes are inconsistent, why the mill asks more questions than usual, or why the sample passes inspection but marks on the line, are usually experiencing the same thing: a specification that did not describe the conditions the ribbon will actually meet. Three things make food packaging ribbon different. First, there is a regulatory dimension. Depending on where the ribbon sits, the same product can be an unregulated decoration, an indirectly-contacted material or a direct food-contact material, and those three categories carry very different documentation requirements and very different supplier qualification depths. Second, there is a physical environment: warm chocolate, sugar syrup, butterfat, chocolate bloom, wax, condensation, chill and a wrapping machine all act on ribbon in ways that nothing in the general decoration world does. Third, there is a hygiene dimension. Food programmes carry contamination, pest, allergen and foreign-body requirements that extend into the packaging supply chain, and a mill that has never produced for food will not have the documentation to satisfy them, regardless of how good its weaving is. And there is a commercial reason to treat food packaging seriously rather than as a sideline. The food and confectionery packaging market is one of the least contested segments of packaging, and the buyers in it are professional: they work with structured specifications, they test to written methods, and they treat a supplier who asks good questions as an asset rather than as a source of delay. A mill that learns to speak this language gains access to programmes that run for years. At Smith Ribbon, in Xiamen since 2004, food and confectionery accounts for a meaningful and growing share of our decorative trim work, and the difference in how those programmes run compared with general gift packaging is very visible. This guide is written for the buyer who has to specify, source and approve ribbon for a confectionery, chocolate or bakery programme - whether that is a single artisan chocolatier ordering paper ribbon for a bag range, a regional bakery chain specifying printed grosgrain for cake boxes, or a contract confectioner sourcing a specific polyester satin for automated flow wrap. The advice is written for B2B procurement and packaging roles, and it assumes you need a specification a mill can quote and a quality regime you can defend to a retailer or a food safety auditor.
The single most important line in a food packaging brief is the one that says where the ribbon touches the product. Get this wrong in the specification and you will receive quotations for the wrong product, or you will receive a compliant decorative ribbon and then fail your own food safety review. No contact. The ribbon is purely external: it wraps the outside of a rigid box, ties a paper bag, crosses a lid of a rigid container, or trims a cake board. In this category the product is generally governed by general product safety and consumer protection rules rather than food-contact rules, although retailer and auditor requirements still bite. Most decorative ribbon programmes sit here, including a large share of what is sold into the gifting and bakery retail channel. Indirect contact. The ribbon touches a barrier layer - cellophane, foil, flow-wrap film, parchment - which in turn touches the food. Many food-contact frameworks treat a material separated from food by a functional barrier differently from a direct-contact material, and the documentation expectations shift accordingly. This is the category where some buyers over-specify and others under-specify, and it is worth asking the mill for their view of the barrier configuration before committing. Direct contact. The ribbon touches the food itself. Examples include a printed band wrapped around a bonbon, a ribbon used as a closure band on a food pouch, a paper ribbon folded around a chocolate bar, and ribbon used inside a gift hamper alongside loose confectionery. Direct contact is where the framework applies in full: in the European Union, Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 on materials intended to come into contact with food, with Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 governing plastic materials and articles; in the United States, the FDA's food-contact substance framework under 21 CFR, and state-level rules such as California's Proposition 65 for listed substances. The commercially useful point is that these three categories are not just a compliance question. A direct-contact programme requires the mill to control the full bill of materials, because a single non-compliant component in a lamination or a core can invalidate the whole declaration. It requires documented compositions rather than general descriptions. It usually requires migration or extract testing on the finished article in its actual construction, which is more expensive and takes longer. And it changes the economics: the number of mills that can quote it is smaller, and the cost per metre is higher, because the testing and documentation are real costs that a buyer should expect to see in the price rather than to assume are free. So state the contact condition explicitly in the RFQ, in those words, with a diagram if the configuration is not obvious. A brief that says "printed grosgrain, 20mm, for chocolate bar wrapping" will be interpreted by four mills four different ways. A brief that says "printed polyester grosgrain, 20mm, applied to the outer surface of a 90 g filled chocolate bar by hand at the wrapping station, in contact with the product surface through no barrier" will be quoted four the same way.
Almost all confectionery and bakery packaging ribbon falls into four families. The right choice depends on the surface it will meet, the machine it will run through, and the signal you want the ribbon to carry. Grosgrain. A textured woven ribbon with pronounced ribs across the width, made in polyester for food work almost universally. Grosgrain is the workhorse of bakery and cake box packaging because it has body, holds a bow or knot without slipping, resists creasing in a carton, and takes printed artwork cleanly along the rib structure. It handles moderate grease and abrasion well and is the most forgiving material on automated equipment. Its weakness is sheen: it reads craft or traditional rather than premium-luxury, so a confectioner chasing a beauty-counter aesthetic will usually move to satin or to paper ribbon with a printed face. Satin. A smooth-faced, lustrous ribbon in polyester, optionally with a metallic or pearlescent finish. Satin is the default for artisan and premium chocolate gift packaging because the sheen communicates value at a distance and photographs well, which matters for confectionery that sells largely through unboxing content. Polyester satin has good colour depth and takes foil or hot-stamped decoration with excellent definition. Its weaknesses are a tendency to crease sharply along a fold, a higher cost per metre, and lower abrasion resistance than grosgrain - so a satin that looks superb in a rigid box may not survive a wrapped bar in a mailer. Paper ribbon. Kraft, coated or uncoated paper with a printed, foiled, embossed or laminated face. Paper ribbon is the fastest-growing choice in the artisan and gift-with-a-twist segment because it reads handmade, coordinates with uncoated board and kraft packaging, and can carry a stamp, emboss or deboss that becomes a brand signature. It also raises questions the other families do not: paper has almost no stretch, so it creases sharply at the corner of a box; it is sensitive to moisture, which matters in a chiller or a condensation-prone environment; and edge quality and drop threads become visible on a light-coloured face at close inspection. Paper ribbon is also the most likely of the four to need food-contact attention, since paper is more often used in or near the product. Organza and sheer fabric. A translucent outer decorative layer, most often over a food-grade film or foil, used for wedding and event favours, gift hampers and premium bakery gift sets. Sheer organza gives a layered, premium look and takes a printed motif with a distinctive translucency. It must be handled carefully on winding, because sheer fabric shows any tension variation in the roll as visible banding on the finished pack. Two cross-cutting material variables. The first is fibre content: in food-contact and, increasingly, in retailer sustainability programmes, the buyer may need to know whether the ribbon is virgin polyester, recycled polyester (RPET), or a blend, and whether any recycled content is chemically restricted. The second is width and weight per metre, because these drive both cost and how the ribbon behaves on the machine. A 12 mm grosgrain and a 25 mm grosgrain of the same construction are different products in handling terms and frequently in price.
This is where food packaging earns its own specification, because a ribbon that performs beautifully in a gift box can fail in a warm, fatty product in a way that no general decoration test would predict. Grease and oil. The test methods in common use are the Eterna grease test, the 3M 5540 blotting paper test and ISO 4920. They are not interchangeable, and they differ in test temperature, duration and severity. A ribbon specified as grease resistant with no method named is an unusable specification. Ask for four things: the method, the temperature, the exposure duration and the acceptance criterion - typically a visual rating such as no visible staining after a set exposure. Then apply your own worst case. A standard condition at 23 degrees tells you very little about a bonbon with warm, high-cocoa-butter chocolate sitting on it for eight hours, or a nut brittle with a high oil migration. Ask the mill to test at the temperature and duration your product actually imposes. This is a normal request and a good mill will simply run the test. Sugar and syrup. Sugar syrup is hygroscopic and sticky. Ribbon that sits against a sugar-dusted product or a glazed cake can pick up a residue that becomes visible on the fabric and, on a woven rib structure, can lodge in the grooves where it will not wash out. If the product is sugary, specify an easy-clean surface and a wipe-and-dry standard rather than assuming washability. Chocolate bloom and fat migration. Cocoa butter migrates into anything it touches at warm temperatures, and it leaves a visible grey-white bloom on fabric. For a product that will sit warm against chocolate, the practical solution is to keep the ribbon off the product surface - which means a decorative band over a sealed shell or a box, rather than a ribbon under the product. If your concept requires contact, then the material must be tested against the specific filling at the specific temperature, and you should accept that this is a conversation with the mill rather than a specification you can write from a catalogue. Wax. Wax-coated chocolate and candle-style gift packaging put a waxy, oily film onto everything nearby. Wax also contaminates recycling streams, which matters if you are making an environmental claim on the pack. Specify the wax condition explicitly if it is present. Chill and condensation. Cold-store and chiller conditions cause condensation. A carton that leaves a 4 degree chiller and meets warm humid air will grow condensation on every surface including the ribbon, and a ribbon with a poor colour-fastness profile will show colour transfer where it is damp. Specify a wet rub or perspiration test alongside the standard dry crocking test, and state the temperature and humidity range if the pack is cold-stored. Abrasion and crocking. In a bakery, a cake box rubs against a neighbouring box on the shelf, and a printed ribbon picks up the neighbouring box's colour or surface. Dry rub and crocking tests under ISO 105-X12 and ISO 105-B02 are the standard references. The specification should state the required rating - typically 4 or better on a 5-point scale - and it should be tested on the printed and finished ribbon, because the finish changes the result. Shrinkage and dimensional stability. A ribbon that shrinks in a wash or in humidity will let go of the box it is tied around, and the failure appears in the warehouse rather than on the line, which is the worst place to discover it. Include shrinkage in the specification, measured on a stated conditioning regime. And flammability. Most food programmes do not have a flammability requirement, but retail environments and some shipping regulations do, and paper ribbon behaves differently from polyester ribbon here. If you are unsure, ask the mill what it can test and what the results typically are, rather than discovering the question at the audit.
Confectionery packaging is one of the most colour-driven categories there is, and colour decisions are made at the brand level long before anyone speaks to a mill. That creates a specific risk: the brand approves a colour against a graphic rendering, and the mill approves a dye lot against a Pantone chip, and the two are not the same reference. Approve against a physical standard, not a chip. Ask the mill to produce a physical swatch, have it sealed and retained, and approve that swatch. Keep one at your site. Every subsequent batch should be compared against it - ideally with a spectrophotometer and a stated Delta E tolerance, not by eye under a warehouse light. Specify the illuminant and the measurement face, because the ribbon face and the reverse of a woven ribbon are measurably different. Watch out for the seasonal and promotional mismatch. A confectionery programme that runs a core line year-round and a festive line for eight weeks needs two colour standards held separately, and it needs a bridge sample when a festive lot is first approved, so the following year's festive order does not quietly drift.Print and artwork in a food context. Printing on ribbon that will be near food raises the same contact question as the ribbon itself - the ink, the binder, the screen mesh and any curing process are all part of the article. Specify the decoration method, the ink system, the number of colours, the repeat length and whether the artwork must be registered to a specific repeat pitch. For a wrapped food product, the registration question is genuinely practical: if the ribbon is applied around a round item, the printed pattern should ideally close at the seam, and a repeat length that does not divide evenly into the circumference means the seam lands mid-motif. Metallic, glitter and flock. Metallic finishes on food packaging are usually a metallised film or a metallic-fibre yarn, and a food-contact declaration has to cover the substrate and the adhesive, not only the visible face. Glitter is harder: loose glitter and flocked surfaces shed particles, which is a contamination risk near food, and most retailer food safety policies restrict them to positions that cannot touch the product. Faux fur, chenille and brushed trim should be treated the same way. The rule that works is to specify the exact finish and its position relative to the product, and then to ask the mill for the compliance documentation for that specific finish rather than for the base ribbon. A mill that has never been asked for finish-specific documentation will need to source the finish from a specialist finisher, which affects lead time and cost, so find out early. Fragrance, and the sensory trap. Scented ribbon exists and is occasionally requested by gift and bakery brands. It should be a deliberate decision with a defined boundary. Scent is applied as an auxiliary treatment, so it can migrate, it can pick up food odours, and in a confectionery context it may actively compete with the product's own aroma. If fragrance is part of the concept, the defensible design is a scented outer layer with no food contact, a written declaration of the fragrance used, and an understanding that the scent will fade over the shelf life of the packaging. And the dye lot question that catches everyone. Dyes are the one component where batch-to-batch variation is intrinsic rather than a defect. A mill that has never worked with a customer on dye-lot continuity is often surprised by how much the buyer cares. The right approach is to agree the tolerance, hold the standard swatch, and have the mill retain a sample from every approved lot. Where a brand has seasonal or campaign continuity requirements - the same ribbon appearing in photography, in a second production run six months later - ask the mill to hold the yarn and dye lots for a defined period.
Ribbon arrives at the confectionery or bakery as a roll that has to feed a machine, a bench or a cellophane wrapper, and a lot of avoidable downtime comes from specifications that did not describe the physical format. The three numbers that matter. Width in millimetres, length in metres per roll, and core diameter. The two common cores are 25.4 mm (one inch) and 76 mm (three inches). Manual gift-wrapping and small shops use one-inch cores; automated wrapping, flow-wrap and bow-making lines are generally built around three-inch cores with wider webs, and some high-speed lines need a specific core type and a controlled winding direction. If you buy one-inch and feed a three-inch line, you will spend a day changing cores before you start production. Winding direction and ribbon orientation. Some machines need the ribbon wound face-out and some face-in, and some need the selvedge in a particular orientation relative to the roll. If the mill has the face wound the wrong way, the whole roll is scrap. State the requirement, or send a photo of how the current roll sits on your machine. Thickness, tape and glue. If the ribbon runs through a tying or bow-making machine, the construction matters more than the width: a satin with a heavy paper backing behaves completely differently from a soft polyester satin, a wired ribbon will not feed a standard bow machine at all, and a ribbon with a glue line down the middle needs a different cutting and heat-seal process. If the ribbon is applied by heat-sealing on the pack, the sealability of the specific construction is a property you must test. Bevels and edges. A woven ribbon has a raw edge. On a visible pack face a frayed or heavy edge is unacceptable, so most food-grade decorative ribbon is cut with a bevelled or heat-sealed edge. Specify that, and specify the tolerance on the edge condition, because it is one of the most common causes of a quality rejection on arrival. Splice control. A roll that is spliced or knotted mid-roll will stop a machine. Ask the mill for the maximum number of splices per roll, whether they are detectable, and the roll length that avoids splicing altogether. In our own production at Smith Ribbon, in Xiamen since 2004, we will size the roll length to the customer's machine and state the splice count in the packing list, because a surprise splice in a high-speed flow-wrap line costs a buyer an hour every time it happens.
Three practical mechanics that come up repeatedly in food packaging sourcing.
MOQ is usually a material MOQ, not a setup MOQ. Ribbon is made on looms running a warp of yarn. The binding constraint is usually the dyed yarn lot - a colour needs a minimum dye-lot quantity to be economic, and that quantity is often 300 to 500 metres per colour, sometimes higher for a shade that needs a specific dye. The other constraint is print setup, where a screen or plate is charged once. So a programme with eight colours is really running eight yarn lots, and the effective MOQ is eight times the per-colour minimum. This is worth modelling explicitly, because it changes which product designs are viable at a given volume: a six-colour festive range and a two-colour core range have very different economics at the same order quantity.
Sampling has three distinct stages and they are not interchangeable. A yarn or greige sample shows the construction. A lab dip or strike-off shows the colour and print but not the finished hand. A woven and finished sample shows the real product. For a food programme, the finished sample is the one that matters, and it should be produced on the production loom with the production colour recipe and the production finish, not on a sample loom. Ask whether the sample was made on production equipment. A sample that is not production-representative will consume a round of your approval budget for nothing.
And the documentation package. Ask for six named items in the RFQ, because a request for "certificates" gets you a portfolio rather than what you need:
1. A full material declaration listing every material in the construction - fibre, core, adhesive, coating, metallic or flock component, and the ink system if printed.
2. Food-contact compliance documentation for your market, with the test report referencing the specific article and colour you are buying.
3. Declarations for restricted substances relevant to your market - REACH SVHC for Europe, Prop 65 where you sell into California.
4. Performance test reports against the criteria in your specification - grease method and condition, wet and dry crocking, rub, shrinkage, and flammability if applicable.
5. Quality and social audit documentation - ISO 9001 for the quality system, plus the social and ethical audit credentials your retailer or brand requires.
6. Batch traceability - a lot code on every carton linking to yarn lot, dye lot and production date, with a stated retention period for the retained standard swatch.
Treat a supplier that answers with a generic certificate folder as a supplier that did not read the brief. The right response is not to reject the supplier but to ask again with the six items named individually. Most mills that have worked with food brands will produce all six; the ones that cannot have not previously been set up for it, and you now know that before you have committed rather than after.
Pulling the above together into a brief that a mill can quote without a follow-up call takes about two pages. This is the structure we would use if we were buying. Section one - the programme. Who you are, the product the ribbon wraps, the channels and markets, the annual volumes by colour, and the target launch date. Volumes are a forecast, clearly labelled. Section two - the contact condition. State direct, indirect or no contact, with a diagram of the pack configuration. This one line determines the compliance scope and it is the line most often omitted. Section three - the material and construction. Family, fibre content and any recycled content, width and tolerance, weave, weight per metre, edge condition, core diameter and roll length, winding direction. Section four - the decoration. Method, artwork status, colour references with the tolerance and the measurement method, number of colours, repeat length, metallic or glitter finish and its position relative to the product. Section five - the performance requirements. Grease method with temperature and duration, wet and dry crocking rating, rub rating, shrinkage, colour fastness conditions, and any flammability requirement - each as a testable line rather than a descriptor. Section six - the packaging and logistics. Carton quantity, carton dimensions, whether ribbon is wound onto cores supplied by you or by the mill, shipping configuration, destination and delivery term. Section seven - the documentation. The six items named individually, with the market named. Section eight - the questions. Ask what the mill needs that you have not specified, what it would change about the specification and why, what it would recommend instead, and what it can hold consistently versus where it is at the edge. A mill that proposes a different construction for your chocolate band - a specific foil-backed or film-backed ribbon, or a wax-free print process - is doing the actual work, and those proposals deserve evaluation rather than dismissal. One closing point on the relationship. Food packaging programmes reward suppliers who understand the audit and the line. They are rarely one-off: a chocolate range that is working on shelf tends to be reordered, extended into new flavours, and moved into a second market, which means the mill that understands the compliance position and the machine behaviour becomes part of your supply base rather than a vendor you re-tender each season. That is the commercial argument for investing in a properly specified brief and a properly run approval. At Smith Ribbon, in Xiamen since 2004, we produce decorative ribbon, bows and trim for confectionery, chocolate and bakery programmes across more than fifty countries, from our own 15,000 sqm factory with OEKO-TEX, FSC, BSCI, SEDEX, ISO 9001 and SMETA credentials. Send us your pack configuration, your contact condition and your volumes, and we will tell you what is still missing before you go to a full quotation round, what we would recommend for the material, and where our own process limits sit on your specification. If your programme is already drafted, send it as it stands - we will mark up anything that would prevent a comparable quotation from your other suppliers as well.
It depends entirely on where the ribbon sits. Ribbon that wraps the outside of a chocolate box, ties a paper bag, or decorates a cake board is not in direct contact with food and is usually governed only by general chemical and consumer-safety rules. Ribbon that is wrapped around a bonbon, sits under a lid seal, or is used as a closure band that touches the product is in direct contact and must be manufactured from materials covered by an applicable food-contact framework - in the EU, Regulation 1935/2004 and the relevant framework Regulation 10/2011 for plastics; in the United States, FDA 21 CFR for food-contact substances. The distinction matters commercially as well as legally, because direct-contact material usually means a declared composition, migration testing and a materially different supplier qualification process. Specify the contact condition explicitly in your brief: direct contact, indirect contact with a barrier layer, or no contact.
Four families cover almost the whole market. Grosgrain is the workhorse - a textured polyester ribbon with good stiffness and body, widely used for cake boxes, pastry boxes and bakery gift sleeves. Satin ribbon, usually polyester, is the premium choice for chocolate gift boxes and cosmetics-style confectionery, where sheen and drape carry the brand signal. Paper ribbon, often kraft or coated paper with a printed or foiled face, is the artisan and gift-with-a-twist material because it reads handmade and can carry a stamp or emboss. Organza and sheer fabric are used as an outer decorative layer over a food-grade film or foil, most often for weddings, gift hampers and premium bakery gift sets. Within each family the fibre content, width, weave and finish determine how the material behaves against grease, sugar syrup, chocolate bloom, wax, chill and abrasion, and that is where specification discipline matters.
It means the ribbon does not allow oil or fat to migrate through it or stain it permanently under a defined test condition. The commonly cited methods are the Eterna grease test, the 3M 5540 blotting paper test, and ISO 4920, and they are not interchangeable - a supplier quoting 'grease resistant' without naming the method has told you nothing. What matters commercially is that the test condition should reflect your actual worst case: warm filled chocolate with a high cocoa-butter content, an oily nut brittle, a butter-rich pastry, or a glazed cake box. A ribbon that passes a standard condition at room temperature can still mark under a warm, fatty filling. Ask for the test method, the temperature, the exposure duration and the acceptance criterion, and require the test on the specific colour and finish you are buying, because a foil print or a matte coating changes the result.
Specify width, the number of metres per roll and the core diameter, and specify the winding direction if your line feeds from a specific orientation. The two cores you will encounter are the 25.4 mm one-inch core and the 76 mm three-inch core; small ribbon shops and gift wrap use the one-inch core, while automated wrapping and flow-wrap lines are usually built around three-inch cores with wider webs. If your ribbon runs through a bow-making or tying machine, the ribbon thickness and the tape or glue construction matter more than the core, because a stiff or thick ribbon will jam or fray. The practical approach is to send the mill a photograph of the machine and the ribbon path, or to name the machine model and let the mill recommend a construction, and then to test a full roll on your own line before releasing a production order.
Approach it as a colour programme rather than a per-order approval. Ask for a physical standard swatch, sealed and retained at both ends, and approve against that physical standard rather than against a Pantone chip alone. Specify a tolerance in Delta E with the instrument and illuminant stated, and ask which measurement method is used - d65 or TL84, and whether the measurement is taken on the ribbon face or the reverse. For food programmes, be aware that colour appears different under retail lighting and on camera, so the approval should include at least one viewing condition that matches your actual selling environment. When two mills supply the same colour, hold a bridge sample from each side and compare against it. At Smith Ribbon, in Xiamen since 2004, we retain and seal a standard swatch against every approved batch, and we will test any incoming ribbon against it before production rather than relying on visual judgement alone.
Scented ribbon exists but it introduces a set of complications you should decide about deliberately rather than discover later. Scent is typically applied as an auxiliary finishing treatment, which means it can migrate, it can affect the food it is near, and it interferes with the very sensory experience the product is sold for. If you want scent, the sensible design is a scented outer layer with no food contact, and a written declaration of the fragrance used. Metallic and glitter are more common and more manageable, but both require documentation. Metallic usually means a metallised film or a metallic yarn, and a food-contact declaration must cover the substrate, not only the surface finish. Glitter almost always means loose particles or a flocked surface, which is a particle-shedding risk near food and is usually restricted to non-contact positions by retailers and food safety auditors. Specify the exact finish and its position relative to the product, and ask for the compliance documentation for the specific finish rather than for the base ribbon.
A workable package has six parts. First, a material declaration listing every material in the construction, including the core, any adhesive, any coating and any metallic or flock component - a declaration that only covers the fibre is incomplete. Second, the applicable food-contact compliance documentation for the market you sell into, with the test report matching the specific article and colour. Third, a declaration of compliance for the specific restricted substances relevant to your market, which in Europe means the REACH SVHC list and, where applicable, packaging and labelling rules. Fourth, test reports on the performance criteria you actually specified - grease, colour fastness, rub and crocking, shrinkage and any flammability requirement. Fifth, manufacturing and quality documentation covering the ISO 9001 quality management system and, for retail programmes, the social and ethical audits most buyers now require. Sixth, batch traceability: a batch or lot code on every carton, linked to the yarn lot, the dye lot and the production date, so a complaint can be traced to a single production run. Ask for the documents as named items in the RFQ, and treat a supplier that answers with a generic certificate portfolio rather than the specific reports as a supplier that has not read the brief.
Ribbon for food packaging is a specification problem before it is a price problem, and the specification has to describe contact condition, physical environment and machine format at the same time. Get those three right and the quote is comparable, the sample means something, and the approval survives an audit. At Smith Ribbon, in Xiamen since 2004, we would rather answer one complete enquiry than resolve a scattered one - it is faster for us too, and it is the only way the quotation we give you is a number you can plan a launch around.
Send us your pack configuration, the contact condition and your volumes, and we will tell you what is still missing before you go to a full quotation round, what we would recommend for the material, and where our own process limits sit on your specification.