Custom Patty Paper
Custom patty paper from 100 cases — square waxed or parchment sheets that keep raw burger patties apart in a stack, a press and a freezer, boxed in a printed dispenser carton.
A square of paper between every burger before it is cooked
- Paper
- Waxed patty paper coated both sides; silicone-coated parchment for smash burgers
- Sizes
- 4¾, 5½ and 6 in squares; custom squares cut to a press plate
- Packing
- Counted, banded stacks in a printed dispenser carton
Order online
Order patty paper
Starting from $0.75 per unit
Printed to your artwork or plain, sold in runs of 100 up to 5,000 units per product online. Freight to the US, UK, Canada and Australia is inside the price.
How an online order runs
- Add the units you needThen check out with your delivery address. Add other products to the same order on the way.
- A digital proof comes backLaid on the dieline, before anything prints. Change it as often as you need.
- Pay once you approve itPay by PayPal invoice or bank transfer after you approve your digital proof, or cash on delivery in the US and Canada.
- We make it and ship it deliveredYour delivery date is confirmed with the proof, against the spec and your fill date. Freight and customs are handled on the way to you.
Another size, board or finish, or more than 5,000 units? Send the spec for a price instead. Freight by market and our terms cover delivery and remakes.
Get a price for Patty Paper
Send the size and quantity — we reply the same working day with a price, a dieline and a date. Artwork optional at this stage.
- Free dielineThe flat drawing comes with the quote, before you commit.
- Proof before pressNothing is printed until you have seen it laid on the dieline.
- Die kept for reordersTooling is paid once. Every reorder skips straight to press.
- Quoted in four marketsUS, UK, Canada and Australia, in the delivery currency.
Square sizes, matched to the patty
| 4¾ x 4¾ in | Sliders and small patties up to about 3½ in across |
|---|---|
| 5½ x 5½ in | The common quarter-pound patty, with a margin to grip |
| 6 x 6 in | Third-pound and half-pound patties, smash burger portions |
| Custom square | Cut to a press plate or a plant-based patty size |
Release is the only spec that really matters
A raw patty is cold, wet and slightly sticky, and it presses into whatever is under it. The sheet has to let go of it in one piece when a cook flips it onto the grill, or the edge tears and a strip of paper goes with it. Waxed patty paper does this with a wax coating on both faces; parchment grades do it with a silicone surface and also hold up when a cook presses a smash burger through the sheet on the griddle.
Both grades stay intact when frozen and thawed, which is where cheaper papers fail. A sheet that softens as the ice melts welds itself to the meat.
Feeding a patty press or a forming machine
- Sheets are cut square and stacked flat so a hand press or the paper feeder on a forming machine picks one at a time.
- Corners are cut clean with no burr, because a ragged edge jams an automatic interleaver.
- The stack is counted and banded inside the box so a line worker knows when a box is running low.
- Waxed sheets are stiff enough to slide off a press plate without curling.
The printed box on the prep counter
The sheets themselves are rarely printed: they never reach a customer and a raw patty is not the place for ink. The carton is where the branding goes. It is a folding box with a lift-up lid or an open dispensing face, printed in full color for a burger brand, a butcher selling pre-formed patties, or a supplier packing patty paper under its own label. For the boxes the cooked burgers leave in, see our burger boxes for takeaway and delivery.
Beyond the burger
Butchers interleave pre-formed patties for retail trays with the same sheets. Kitchens use them to separate portioned cookie dough, crab cakes, sliced cheese and hash brown patties before freezing. Bakers use them to keep rolled dough rounds from sticking in a stack. In each case the square is the point: it fits under one portion and nothing else. Our wider collection of food papers covers the sheets that wrap the finished food.
Send the patty diameter and whether the sheets go through a press or a machine feeder. That sets the square size and the grade.
Wax or parchment: choosing by what happens next
| Stacked and cooked the same day | Waxed sheet; cheapest per thousand, releases cold |
|---|---|
| Frozen in a stack for later | Waxed or parchment; both survive the thaw |
| Smashed through the sheet on a griddle | Parchment; the silicone face takes the heat |
| Fed through a forming machine | Waxed sheet cut to the machine’s square; stiffer stack |
| Sold interleaved in a retail tray | Either; parchment looks cleaner through the film |
Patty Paper — specification
The rows that are specific to this build first, then what applies to every job we run. Anything not listed is a question, not a limit — send the brief.
This build
- Paper
- Waxed patty paper coated both sides; silicone-coated parchment for smash burgers
- Sizes
- 4¾, 5½ and 6 in squares; custom squares cut to a press plate
- Packing
- Counted, banded stacks in a printed dispenser carton
- Carton in full color; sheets supplied plain
- Handling
- Freezer to thaw without softening; clean-cut corners for machine feeders
- Minimum
- 100 cases per square size
On every job
- Print process
- Flexo in one to six colors, printed on the outer face only and before any lining goes on.
- Color
- Food-safe inks throughout. Kraft mutes color; a white board or liner is needed for anything photographic.
- Tolerance
- Cutting plus or minus 1 mm, and fit confirmed by filling a plain sample from your own kitchen or line.
- Tooling
- A cutting die per size, kept. Molded pulp needs a tool per shape, which is a longer lead and a larger one-off.
- Food contact
- Every board food-contact grade, with grease resistance built into the sheet and never a PFAS treatment.
- Sustainability
- Aqueous linings and unlined boards repulp with ordinary paper. PE-lined cups need cup collection, and we say which you have.
- Artwork
- Vector PDF or AI, 3 mm bleed, 4 mm safe area, fonts outlined. We check every file and send a proof before press.
- Dieline
- Supplied free with the quote, before you commit. Yours whether or not you order.
- Sample
- A plain unprinted sample at the finished size on request, for fit and construction.
- Reorders
- Skip the tooling and go straight to press at a lower unit price.
- Lead time
- Quoted with the price against your fill date rather than promised before we have seen the spec.
- Markets
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia — priced in the delivery currency, freight included.
Boards and films we build patty paper on
Food packaging is chosen for what the food does to it: grease, steam, heat and time. Every board here is food-contact grade, and none of them uses a PFAS treatment for grease resistance.
Food-grade virgin board
Bleached board made for direct food contact. Clean, bright, no recycled fiber and no mineral-oil risk from recovered paper.
14–24ptGrease-resistant board
Resistance built into the sheet rather than sprayed on. Holds fries, pastry and butter without darkening. PFAS-free.
16–24ptPE-lined cupstock
Board with a polyethylene film for hot and cold liquid. Microwave-safe for reheating; recycled only where cup collection exists.
260–350gsmAqueous-lined cupstock
A water-based lining instead of PE. Repulpable in ordinary paper recycling in more places, and compostable; a slightly shorter hold time.
260–320gsmGreaseproof and glassine
Dense, calendered paper that resists fat through the fiber. Wraps, liners and interleaves; breathable, so pastry stays crisp.
30–55gsmFood-grade corrugated
E and B flute with a food-contact liner, vented where steam has to leave. Pizza, catering and anything hot and heavy.
E and B fluteMolded pulp and bagasse
Fiber pressed into a shape. Holds heat, resists grease with no lining, composts, and takes only an embossed or one-color mark.
Molded to shapeRecycled board
Post-consumer fiber. Used for outers, sleeves and anything that does not touch food directly — not for direct contact.
Non-contact onlyNot sure which? Say what goes in it and where it is sold — the material follows from that. Our notes on recycled, recyclable and compostable cover which claims each stock can honestly carry.
- 01
Send what you have
A dimension, a photograph beside a ruler, or the product itself. No technical drawing needed — that part is ours.
- 02
We quote and draw
A price, a dieline and a date come back together. If a different build would suit the product better, that is in the reply too.
- 03
Approve the dieline
The flat drawing is yours to check: which panel is the front, where the folds fall, how deep the cavity really is.
- 04
Artwork on the dieline
You place your design on the flat we sent, or we place it for you, and you see a proof before anything goes to press.
- 05
A sample if you want one
A plain unprinted sample at the finished size shows fit and construction — the things a drawing cannot.
- 06
Cut, printed, shipped
The die is cut once and kept, so every reorder skips the tooling and goes straight to press at a lower unit price.
Format
Vector PDF or AI where possible. Raster artwork at 300dpi at final size, in CMYK.
Bleed
3 mm past every trim line, so a fraction of drift on the cutter never leaves a white edge.
Safe area
Keep type and anything important 4 mm inside the cut and away from every fold.
Color
Convert to CMYK before sending. Uncoated stock prints lighter; a spot color is the only exact match.
Fonts
Outline them or supply the files. A missing font substitutes silently and the proof will not match.
Barcodes
On a light, matte, unvarnished patch with the quiet zone clear — a code on gloss fails the scanner.
Not set up that way? Send it anyway — fixing a file is a short conversation, and we check every one before press. Our guide to preparing print files covers each point.
Food finishes are limited by what may touch food, and that is the point.
Food-safe inks
Printed on the outer face only. Every food pack we make uses them, laminated or not.
Uncoated kraft
No coating at all. Breathable, so pastry stays crisp, and it takes one or two colors.
Aqueous varnish
Scuff resistance without a plastic film, so the pack still repulps.
Molded emboss
A logo pressed into pulp or bagasse. No ink, nothing to rub off, and it survives grease.
Grease-resistant face
Not a finish you can see. It is in the sheet, it is PFAS-free, and it is why the print stays clean.
Matte lamination
Available on outers and sleeves that never touch food — a cake box lid, a carrier, a gift sleeve.
Not sure which suits the shelf it sells from? Say where the product is sold and we suggest one — our notes on specialty finishes show them on real boxes.
Sizing food packaging around a portion, hot: patty paper
Food is sized by serving, not by dimensions, and it is served hot, heaped and in a hurry. Send us the portion — or better, the box you use now with the food in it — and we size to how it is actually filled.
- Portion, heaped
- Fries, popcorn and salad are served above the rim. A box sized to a level fill looks mean and spills in a bag.
- Lid clearance
- Enough that a loaded burger or a topped cake does not touch the lid. This is the single most common complaint about a food box.
- Venting
- Hot food steams. Vents in the lid keep pastry and fries crisp; a sealed box is right only for cold food.
- Grease path
- Where the fat sits decides the board. Say if the food is fried, buttered or sauced, and whether it is held for minutes or an hour.
- Stacking in a bag
- Delivery boxes are stacked five high on a bike. The lid has to hold the box above it off the food below.
- Sample fill
- A plain box filled from your kitchen settles the size in one try, and we send one before the run.
Not sure your numbers are right? Send the product dimensions rather than the box dimensions and we work the box out — the full method is in our guide to measuring for a box.
Interactive · five steps · no sign-up
Build your Patty Paper in 3D
Pick a shape, type a size, choose a board and a finish. The preview on the left redraws as you go, and the spec lands with us exactly as you set it.
Frequently asked questions
Got a question about patty paper? The answers below cover what we get asked most. If yours is not here, send it with a brief, message us on WhatsApp, or call +1 503-461-4788 — we reply the same working day.
What is patty paper used for?
To keep raw burger patties apart in a stack, under a press and in the freezer, so each one can be peeled off and cooked on its own.
What size patty paper do I need for a quarter-pound burger?
A 5½ in square fits a quarter-pound patty with a margin to grip. Sliders take 4¾ in and larger patties 6 in.
Is patty paper waxed or parchment?
Both are available. Waxed sheets suit stacking and freezing; silicone parchment also handles a smash burger pressed through the sheet on the griddle.
Does patty paper stick to frozen burgers?
Not when it is the right grade. Both our grades stay intact through freezing and thawing, so the patty releases in one piece.
Will patty paper work in an automatic patty machine?
Yes. Sheets are cut square with clean corners and stacked flat so a machine feeder picks one at a time without jamming.
Can patty paper be printed?
The sheets are supplied plain because they touch raw meat and never reach the customer. The dispenser carton is printed in full color.
Can a butcher use patty paper for retail patties?
Yes. Pre-formed patties for a retail tray are interleaved with the same squares, so a customer can separate them at home.
Can patty paper go on the grill?
The waxed grade comes off before cooking. Parchment patty paper can stay under a smash burger on the griddle while it is pressed.
Can patty paper be used for things other than burgers?
Yes. Kitchens separate cookie dough portions, crab cakes, hash brown patties and sliced cheese with it before freezing.
Can patty paper be cut to a custom square?
Yes. We cut to the size of a press plate or an unusual patty, as long as it is a square or rectangle.
How is patty paper packed?
In counted, banded stacks inside a printed carton, so the prep line can see how much is left in each box.
Same range
More food paper we make
Burritos Wrapping Paper
100 cases per sheet size
Butcher Paper
100 rolls or sheet packs
Deli Food Paper
100 cases per sheet size
Food Basket Liners
100 cases per sheet size
Food Wrapping Paper
100 reams or roll packs
Freezer Paper
100 packs (reams of 100 or 250 sheets, or single rolls)
Glassine Paper
100 packs