Standard vinyl holds on paper bags and coated boxes. Plastic tubs, kraft, and textured card are harder: wipe them, and use High-Tack Stickers. Restaurant labels go on fast, onto whatever the food is in, often with hands that aren't clean, so the surface is usually the problem.
The surfaces, from easiest to hardest
| Surface | Standard vinyl |
|---|---|
| Paper bags | Holds well |
| Coated card boxes | Holds well |
| Kraft and textured card | Struggles: use High-Tack |
| Plastic tubs | Often hard: many are polypropylene, which resists adhesive. Wipe, use High-Tack, and test |
| Anything oily | Wipe it first, or expect it to lift |
| Hot surfaces | Apply before it heats up, not after |
High-Tack is the same print with a much stronger adhesive, made for rough and textured surfaces and low-energy plastics. If stickers have curled at the corners on one kind of packaging, High-Tack is the usual fix; pressing harder isn't.
Allergen and dietary labels
These need to be quick to find and quick to apply. Sheet labels work well: each design is its own item, and the labels peel off the sheet as you need them. Order one design for each label in your range. Tell us the finished label size, and we lay out the sheet. Your proof shows how many fit on each one.
Use color to make them easy to find at a glance. Someone reaching for the right label at the pass is matching colors, not reading.
Order numbers and times
If these are written by hand, choose matte and leave a real box, not a printed line. On roll labels, matte takes a pen or a permanent marker, while writing on a gloss roll label scratches off with a fingernail. On stickers and vinyl sheet labels, gloss takes a permanent marker too. See writing on stickers and labels.
If they're printed, variable data printing puts a different number on every label in one run. Adding numbering is an artwork change. We can help, so reach out for a quote.
Heat and cold
Apply labels before the packaging gets hot. Adhesive needs to flow to bond, and it flows badly onto a hot surface. Once a label has bonded, a fridge or freezer isn't a problem; see can stickers and labels go in the freezer or fridge?
Ordering
The minimum is 25 of a design on stickers and sheet labels, and 100 on Custom Roll Labels, so a seasonal special can be ordered alongside your everyday labels. Stickers and sheet labels ship 3 to 5 business days after you approve the proof, and roll labels 5 to 7. Rush is available for a fee, and an exact reorder of approved artwork skips the proof round.