Factory canteen: the one place where unprinted is the right answer

Consumption compresses into shifts

Meals are not spread across the day, they compress into two or three shift windows. That does not change the total, but it sets the distribution: a napkin handed to a large number of people at once shapes the shelf and dispenser arrangement around that peak.

The calculation starts and ends with headcount

Headcount times working days times meals. No forecast. In a plant serving two thousand covers a day, a small difference in the unit price of a napkin turns into a real figure across the year — the whole decision sits in that multiplication.

For daily use, print is usually unnecessary

Choosing unprinted is a decision in itself

An unprinted item removes the plate and press setup cost entirely. Against that, the press line carries its own production minimum and that minimum applies to unprinted items too — so the gain shows in unit price rather than in the quantity threshold.

Where the annual quantity is known, produce it once

If the quantities are known upfront, producing in one run and holding stock lowers the unit cost noticeably. Storage is rarely the constraint on the factory side, which makes this the segment where the quantity break is easiest to use.

Audit day is a separate line

On customer and audit visits the canteen becomes the company's shop window. Holding a separate printed line for a handful of days a year costs markedly less than running printed product all year.

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