I'm coming late to this thread but if you're still trying to figure this out here's what I've found after printing six-zillion labels myself, becoming a master at fixing label printers, getting bids from label printers (all over Europe and the US), looking at getting custom printed bags, and finally finding the solution that worked for me.
First custom printed bags. This is a great solution if one bag design works for you and then you put a label on the bag that tells what's in the bag. A coffee company here in Ireland, Badger & Dodo does that. They've got a, IMHO, a beautiful bag they use for everything and then put on a small label saying exactly which coffee is in the bag. That doesn't work for us because we are color coded. This is because we sell retail. So while mom may not remember the name of the coffee she loves she does remember that it is the red label or black label or purple label. Also we've got 5 coffees, ground and whole bean, so 10 coffees, and economical bag printing is about 5,000 bags. That's 50,000 bags for us. What if something changes? What if we decide to stop roasting one of the 10? And whose got the space to store all those bags? And why tie up all that dough?
If you can go the Badger & Dodo approach great, otherwise you've got to get pretty big for custom printed bags.
Hiring a printer is expensive.
Printing yourself is super time consuming. And you always have printer issues. And I don't use a high-dollar Primera printer but Epson professional printers which are about $500 a pop. They print beautifully but they break, you're always filling ink cartridges, and, oh yes, I did mention that it is SUPER TIME CONSUMING. Pay someone to do the printing and put your valuable time to work elsewhere.
My best solution to date, and this will change as we grow, but today I supply my print shop with labels (because I can source them cheaper than they can) and they print on a high speed laser printer. They'll run off 1,000 sheets of 4 labels per sheet, mixed quantities of my 10 labels PLUS the back labels, so 20 label variations, in an hour.
As to label design that's a whole 'nuther ball game. We did it ourselves and it worked but maybe we just got lucky because I wouldn't say we are design geniuses. To date though we know what we want with great certainty so it is easy to do the designs when you know that. If you're not sure maybe working with a designer is best.
