A hotel group, a gym and a gift shop
You roast your own coffee, and on the side you roast for other people's brands. A hotel group wants its own label on a medium roast blend in 1 kilo bags. A gym sells your coffee under its name in 250 gram bags it supplies itself. A gift shop wants a Christmas blend with a label that changes every year.
Each order comes by email. Someone digs out the last one to remember the blend ratio, finds the label artwork in a shared drive, checks whether the gym's bags are still in the store room, and hopes the right label goes on the right bag.
The spec lives in old emails
White label work is a small version of contract manufacturing, but it is usually run like a favour. The specification for each brand, meaning blend, roast level, grind, bag, label version and pack sizes, is never written down in one place.
- Blend recipes for white label customers are kept in emails.
- Label artwork versions are not tied to the orders they were used for.
- Customer supplied bags are stored alongside your own with no count.
- Minimum order quantities and lead times are agreed informally.
- Pricing for each brand is on the last invoice.
What a mix up costs
Putting the wrong label on a white label bag is visible to your customer's customers, which is worse than a mistake in your own brand. Using an old label version after a customer changed their artwork, or a different blend ratio from last time, damages trust. Running out of a customer's own bags stops the order. And quoting and scheduling white label jobs by hand means they get squeezed around your own production.
White label management we build
- Each white label customer has a specification record: blend recipe, roast profile name, grind options, bag type, pack sizes, label artwork version and any special marking such as a batch or best before format.
- Artwork is stored with a version number and approval date, and only the approved version can be printed.
- Customer supplied bags and labels are held as stock against that customer, deducted as their orders are packed, with a warning when they run low.
- Orders, whether placed through a simple portal or entered from emails, create roast and packing tasks in your roast plan with the right spec attached.
- Packing prints the customer's label with the roast and batch details, so labels never have to be matched by eye.
- Each customer's price, minimum order and lead time are held on the account, and feed invoicing in your accounts package.
| Detail | Where it is now | Where it lives afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Blend and roast | Old emails | Specification record |
| Label artwork | Shared drive, several versions | Approved version only |
| Customer's bags | Store room, uncounted | Stock against their account |
| Order | Roast and packing tasks | |
| Price and minimums | Last invoice | Held on the account |
White label as a proper line of business
White label orders flow through the same roast plan and packing bench as your own coffee, with the specification attached rather than remembered. Label mix ups become very hard to make, and customers who change their artwork know the change has been applied. You can also see how much white label work you do, and whether it is worth growing.
Could this help your white label work?
- White label specs are found in old emails.
- Several versions of a customer's label artwork exist.
- You have run out of a customer's supplied bags mid order.
- White label jobs are fitted around your own roasting by memory.
- Pricing and minimums differ by customer and are not written down.