Panettone, Pandoro, Colomba: One Tin, Three Seasons
A minimum of 5,000 pieces per design and size, read on its own, looks like a figure written for industry. For a mid-sized bakery the first reaction is nearly always the same: that is too many. The number changes character, though, as soon as you read it against the whole calendar rather than the Christmas season alone. The tin that holds a 1 kg panettone also holds a pandoro, and in another format of the same family it holds a colomba. The tooling does not change, and with a well-judged design, neither does the tin.
One shape, three products
The six Masaş formats for festive leavened cakes run on existing tooling: round Ø190, Ø215 and Ø265, square 190×190, 215×215 and 235×235, all tall, with heights from 100 to 150 mm (Ø215 and 215×215 also to 180 mm). They were drawn around panettone, but panettone is not the only cake that fits.
Pandoro, with its star section and generous height, takes up the same vertical space as a 1 kg panettone and sits naturally in the Ø215 and the 215×215. Colomba is a different animal: low, wide, with wings that spread outward. Its natural homes are the Ø265 and the 235×235 — the same formats that at Christmas hold a 1.5 to 2 kg panettone or a 1 kg gift set with accessories. Veneziana and summer panettone, both increasingly present on Italian counters, use the classic panettone formats. One family of formats therefore covers Christmas, Easter and the out-of-season editions, always on the same tooling.
The Ø215 remains the core of the range because it is the 1 kg panettone size. A 1 kg paper baking mould measures roughly Ø165–172 × 110–125 mm, and the baked cake flares 15–25 mm wider than the mould and domes 30–50 mm above it. The tin's diameter and height are calculated on that, not on the empty mould.
One design, three seasons
First the fixed point: the minimum is 5,000–25,000 pieces per design and size. Every design is its own run with its own minimum. A Christmas tin that says "Buon Natale" and an Easter tin with a dove drawn on it are two designs, and therefore two runs of 5,000 pieces each. What shared tooling gives you is something else, and it is concrete: every seasonal run — 5,000 panettone tins in autumn, 5,000 colomba tins in winter — goes on the same mould, with no tooling wait and the same 4–6 weeks from approved artwork.
The real way to make 5,000 pieces comfortable for a mid-sized bakery is different, and it runs through the design. A tin that carries neither "Natale" nor "Pasqua" but the bakery's name, the town, a decorative motif, the founding year, belongs to no season. One 5,000-piece run of one design then serves panettone in December, colomba in April and veneziana or summer panettone in the warm months: roughly 1,700 pieces per season, from a single design and a single order.
A tin with no date and no festival on it does not expire with the festival. The customer keeps it in the kitchen, fills it with biscuits, gives it again, and your name stays in the house all year. If you do want to change the artwork from one season to the next, be aware that it is a new design with its own minimum, and we will tell you so plainly before the quotation, not after.
The tooling is ours, the artwork is yours
This is a point we always make clear, because it avoids misunderstandings. The tooling for the six sizes belongs to Masaş and stays in İstanbul. You do not pay for a mould, you do not own one, and you never have to store or move one. The shape is not exclusive: other bakeries and other brands can order a Ø215 at 150 mm. The artwork is exclusive: your print is never used for anyone else. In practice, what the customer sees on the counter — colours, illustration, name — is yours alone; what they do not see, the tinplate and the way it is formed, is shared, and that is precisely why there is no wait for new tooling.
The comparison shows the advantage. New tooling takes around 8 weeks, plus 4–6 weeks of production, so 12–14 weeks in all. With existing tooling you go from approved artwork to finished tins in 4–6 weeks. If you want to hold the format in your hands before deciding, we send an existing tin free of charge, not printed with your artwork; you cover only the courier.
If you want the season on the tin
Some bakeries want the tin to say the festival, and that is legitimate. There are two routes. The first is a fully seasonal design for each run, each at its own 5,000-piece minimum: it makes sense when the Christmas volumes alone justify it. The second, better suited to a bakery that wants a single order, is the season-neutral tin dressed for the occasion by the bakery itself: a red ribbon in December, a sleeve with a dove in April, a gift tag with the year. The dressing changes in the workshop and the tin underneath stays the same.
Any lid-only variants on an unchanged body are a question for the quotation stage, with the artwork and the volumes on the table — not a promise we make in an article.
The ordering calendar
Italian bakeries order Christmas tins between February and June and colomba tins between October and January. That is the right rhythm, but it is not a cage: with existing tooling and 4–6 weeks from approved artwork to finished tins, a September order still makes Christmas, and an order placed between October and January makes Easter. A bakery that chooses the season-neutral tin for the whole year does well to order it in the Christmas window, so the colomba pieces are already on the shelf when Easter comes round.
One practical detail that changes nothing in your workshop: a decorative tin is not airtight. The barrier for panettone remains the sealed inner bag you already use. The tin is the outside, the gift, the object that stays in a kitchen until next year; the interior is protected by a food-safe lacquer, and preservation is done by the bag, exactly as it is today.
Under 5,000 pieces
Under 5,000? Tell us your volume and we will tell you plainly what is possible. The minimum stays at 5,000–25,000 pieces per design and size, but with a design that belongs to no single festival those pieces spread across the whole year, and that is what makes the number reasonable.
The six formats, the heights and the available lids are described on our panettone tin page. If you already have an idea of your volumes per season, a request for quotation is the fastest way to a clear number, and if you want to understand how the minimum order works for a custom tin, we walk through it step by step in this article on minimum order quantities.
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