Bag Labels

I'm in the process of writing three new bag labels for the back of coffee bag. Here is a back-label I wrote to celebrate Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee™ partnering with Barrington Hall, a historic plantation home:

"In the 1880s, three grandsons of Barrington King began a coffee and tea company under the name Baker & Co., Importers and Roaster of Coffee. Their high-end coffee products were called "Barrington Hall" and featured a photo of Barrington Hall on advertisements and labels. Baker & Co. remained in business until WWII when the U.S. Government converted production to K-rations for the Allied troops.

Barrington Hall is back in the coffee business with Land of a Thousand Hills CoffeeTM, a local coffee company and roaster who purchases beans directly from farming cooperatives in Rwanda, ensuring the growers receive a Living Wage. Land of a Thousand Hills CoffeeTM is passionate about excellence in coffee, pursuing social justice, and cultivating community. Friends of Barrington Hall and Land of a Thousand Hills CoffeeTM are keeping the Barrington Hall historic coffee tradition alive with this new label of specialty roasted coffee. Drink Coffee. Do Good."


Writing bag labels is quite possibly the hardest task I've encountered in my job. Having to capture the company's voice and core values while convey the basic knowledge a reader would want to glean is difficult to do in a small amount of space. The label I am hoping to finalize tomorrow will be the standard coffee bag label. Fortunately, my boss and I had a lunch meeting last week with one of the foremost bloggers in the world, Jon Acuff. He offered a piece of really good advice: Get out of the way when you tell your story. A good story lets readers write themselves in.

My goal for the new label is to communicate the basic story of how Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee™ was founded, share how Rwandan farming communities are becoming a vibrant picture of sustainability, and let the reader write themselves in by inviting them to Drink Coffee and Do Good!