Qualify your second label source before you need one
Send your artwork now and approve the proof once. The day you need a backup, it's one phone call — we print and ship. Wait until the emergency to start, and the same order takes the full two weeks.
A normal week: your labels arrive through one route — your primary supplier.
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How it works, in one sentence: you send artwork and approve a proof ahead of time — so when you call, we skip straight to printing. Skip the ahead-of-time part, and specs, plates, and proofing all happen inside your emergency: about two weeks.
The Exposure
No labels, no shipments
Labels are the packaging input nobody thinks about until a pallet can't leave the dock. Any one of these takes your only supplier offline — and your production schedule with it:
A plant fire or floodTheir disaster recovery plan becomes your shipping schedule.
Material allocationWhen film or liner runs short, someone's orders wait. Maybe yours.
An acquisitionNew owners reshuffle customer priorities. Small accounts feel it first.
A quality slideRejected barcodes and drifting color, discovered on your line.
Drag the Days
The call just came. Your primary can't ship. What do the next two weeks look like?
Same supplier, same label. The only difference: whether your artwork was approved before the phone rang.
Day0of 14
Drag the slider — or press the arrow keys
Qualified — artwork approved in advance
Your specs, dies, and approved proof are already on file.
Not qualified — artwork sent today
Nothing on file. Specs, plates, and proofing start inside the emergency.
Both timelines are the same CLS plant. The difference is when the artwork was approved. Production standards: reorders with tooling on file often run about a week; new flexographic jobs take about two weeks from artwork approval, with plate production alone typically 5–7 business days. Transit for NJ/NY/PA: 1–2 business days.
The Qualification Path
Four steps, no commitment
Qualification happens before you need it — that's the whole point. Artwork approved in advance is what turns activation into a phone call. No retainer, no minimum, no fee to stay on file.
1
Send your label now
A sample, artwork, or specs — sent on a calm day, before anything is wrong. Nothing needed from your primary supplier.
2
Approve the proof once
Size, material, adhesive, colors, roll format — you sign off in advance. The approval that would otherwise eat your emergency is already done.
3
File on standby
Specs, dies, and artwork stay with us at no charge. Optionally run a small validation order.
4
Activation is a call
Your primary falters, you phone your contact, and we print and ship — no proofing round, no plates to wait on. The two weeks already happened, back when it cost you nothing.
A second source is a backup label manufacturer you've qualified before you need one — specs confirmed, a proof approved, tooling identified — so if your primary supplier has a fire, an allocation problem, an ownership change, or a quality slide, you can place an order without starting a supplier search mid-crisis. Many large companies require a qualified second source for critical packaging inputs as standard risk policy.
The same way a first order works, minus the commitment: send your current label — a physical sample, artwork, or specs — and we spec the match, confirm materials, and send a proof for your approval. Once you sign off, your specs, dies, and artwork stay on file with us. From that point, activating us is a purchase order, not a project.
No. Qualification costs you a sample and a proof review. There's no retainer, no minimum commitment, and no fee for keeping your specs on file. Some companies place a small first run to validate the labels on their line — a reasonable step we'd encourage — but standby qualification alone doesn't obligate you to anything.
It depends entirely on when your artwork was approved. Qualified in advance — proof signed off, tooling identified, specs on file — activation runs like a reorder, often about a week in production. But if your first contact with us is the day of the emergency, artwork in hand, the normal process still applies: specs, plate production (5–7 business days), proofing, then press — about two weeks. Qualification exists to move all of that to before the crisis.
Because in a supply emergency, the bottleneck is rarely press time — it's re-establishing what your label actually is: exact size, material, adhesive, colors, roll format, unwind direction. We keep all of it, along with your dies and approved artwork, so the version of your label we run in month 14 matches the proof you approved in month 1.
Yes. New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania get the fastest delivery — most orders arrive within 1–2 business days of shipment — and we ship nationwide with tracking on every order. For a backup supplier, a couple of transit days is rarely the constraint; having tooling ready is.
The best day to qualify a backup was before the emergency
Send us your current label and we'll take it from there — matched specs, a proof for your sign-off, and your file on standby. The second-best day is today.