OEM and private label — what you commit to, and what the print minimum costs

One container of charcoal is not one container of your brand. The print minimum is 5,000 boxes per design, per size, and that is what decides your launch.

Every supplier in this trade says private label starts at one container. None of them says what the print minimums are, so a brand owner finds out after committing. This page leads with the constraint and shows the arithmetic, because the number that binds a multi-SKU launch is not the charcoal — it is the boxes.

§1 · What we make under your brand

Three formats — cube, flat and disc — in five inner weights: 250 g, 500 g, 1 kg, 5 kg, 10 kg. With or without an aluminium foil inner wrap. One grade of charcoal throughout: the formats differ in geometry rather than in formulation, so a disc and a cube out of the same run are the same material pressed into different shapes. Discs run 33 mm and 40 mm standard; other sizes on request, published with the burn duration measured for each format — the two sizes the Gulf shelf already sells, so a brand moving off instant-light keeps the format its customers recognise.

The format choice does change one thing a buyer can measure. Under the protocol on our specification page, a cube runs 180 minutes, a flat 100 minutes and a disc 90 minutes — the protocol, and what those figures do and do not mean, are on the page that owns them. That is a product decision rather than a packaging one, and it is the only quantitative reason to pick one format over another.

One qualification on the disc figure, because it affects what goes on your carton rather than only what goes in it: the diameter of the disc it was measured on was not recorded, so it covers one of the two sizes and we cannot say which. The property that is known per diameter is the ash wait, and the two sizes are five minutes apart — both figures, and the conditions behind each. If you are printing a wait time on a box, print the one for the diameter in the box.

Why this grade rather than a cheaper one is a longer argument: which charcoal is correct for bakhoor makes it, with its weakest link marked. We private-label our own grade and nothing else.

§2 · The print minimum, and what it costs you

The minimum is 5,000 boxes per design, per size. Read that as a floor on how many boxes get printed at once, not as a ceiling on what you can order: it sets the size of a print run, and the run does not have to be consumed by a single shipment.

What the minimum costs is therefore a commitment rather than a limit. Multiply it by the inner weight and you get the charcoal those boxes will eventually hold, which is what you are undertaking to pack under that artwork.

Every figure there is arithmetic you can check: the print minimum times the inner weight, then divided by what a container carries. A container holds about 18 t depending on cube density and packing, which is confirmed at quotation with the rest of the terms — so the shipment counts in the last column are approximate by construction.

What happens to the boxes a shipment does not use

They stay here. Printed boxes are stored at the factory and drawn down across consecutive shipments, which is what most of our repeat customers already do. A run that outlasts one container is not a run you cannot use; it is working capital sitting in a warehouse in the form of boxes, and the second shipment under that artwork starts with the packaging already made.

That is the part nobody tells a brand owner, and it changes the planning question. At the two largest inner sizes a single artwork at minimum outlasts one shipment, and that is a cash-flow decision rather than a closed door.

Why the minimum exists at all

We print offset, at industrial print houses. Plate and setup cost is fixed per design and does not care how many boxes you run against it, so the unit cost falls with run length and there is a length below which the run is not worth making. The minimum is where that stops being economic rather than a policy we chose, which is why a buyer who understands the mechanism plans around it instead of arguing about it.

§3 · How to plan around it

Four moves, in order of how much they save. The first two are our advice rather than our process — you know your market and we do not.

1 · One bilingual artwork instead of two

Arabic and English on the same box is standard across the Gulf and halves the artwork count outright. Two sizes bilingual is two print runs; two sizes in two separate language versions is four. That one decision is worth more than any other on this page, and it is ours as advice rather than as a finding.

2 · Launch narrow, widen on reorder

One size proven through, then add sizes once it has sold. A 1 kg line at minimum is a fraction of a container, which leaves room in the same shipment for unbranded or bulk stock while your brand finds its level. The reorder is also cheaper to place than the first order, for the reason in §5.

3 · Mix sizes to fill the container

The small sizes are cheap in tonnage and expensive per kilo to print; the large ones are the reverse. Two artworks at two sizes fill a shipment more evenly than either does alone, and the table in §2 is how you work out which pair.

4 · Print the master carton and leave the inner plain

The master carton minimum is 500 cartons per design, an order of magnitude below the inner. If your buyer is a distributor rather than a shelf, a printed master around unbranded inners may be all the branding the chain actually sees. This is the move that saves a buyer the most money and earns us the least, and it belongs on the page for exactly that reason.

§4 · What is actually being printed

Three of those choices are worth a sentence, because a specification you cannot read is not a specification you can compare.

• E flute on the inner is the fine one. It gives a flat, high-quality print surface, which is what a box a customer picks up and looks at needs.
• BC flute on the master is double wall, with the stacking strength a dense product needs when it is loaded to container height.
• The lamination on the inner is not a moisture barrier. It resists scuffing in transit and handling and it does nothing about humidity. The foil wrap is the moisture barrier, and moisture is a real problem for this product — what a cube does with water over months in a humid store is why we mention it here rather than leaving you to find out.

What the sealed inner is worth, measured

That last one we have run rather than asserted. Three cubes sealed in a bag and left in open, unconditioned space at the factory in Magelang showed no change at two weeks and +0.5% at six. Central Java ambient is about as hard a test of a bag as this product meets anywhere in the chain, and what was inside it barely moved.

Read that for what it is: a measurement of the packaging, not of the charcoal. It says the sealed inner does its job in humidity. It says nothing about what an opened box does over a season in a customer’s home, because nothing in this test was open — the method is our own weight-gain protocol rather than a standard one, published with what it can and cannot tell you, and the loose-cube version that would speak to the open box is still outstanding.

§5 · The sequence, and what you commit at each step

1. Artwork. Supplied by you, to our dieline. You own it and it stays yours.
2. Proof. Before the run, in one of three forms — see below.
3. Print. Offset, against the approved proof, at the minimum in §2.
4. Production. Charcoal to the published specification, packed to your configuration.
5. Shipment. Container terms on the commercial page, and the dangerous-goods paperwork on the page that covers what ships under UN 1361.

Your artwork does not have to be set up twice

Artwork files are retained, so a reorder repeats neither plate nor setup.

That is the most useful commercial fact on this page, so it is not buried in step one. Setup is a real charge and it is one a buyer pays again at every supplier who does not hold the files. Here the second order of a design costs less to place than the first, and the fifth costs the same as the second. It is also what makes the second move in §3 work: launching narrow only makes sense if widening later is cheap.

Changing the artwork is a new design, and a new design is a new setup. Retention is not a promise that edits are free — it is a promise that repeating the same box is.

The proof, and which one to ask for

Three options: a digital proof or a printed flat sheet in a day, or a made-up box in five by request.

For a first artwork we recommend the made-up box. It is the slowest of the three and it is the only one that puts the actual object in your hand — folded, laminated, the right board, the right size — rather than a picture of it. Against a commitment of 5,000 boxes per design, per size, the extra days are the cheapest insurance on the whole order.

Use a digital proof for a colour check on a design you have already run, and a flat sheet when you want to see print quality without waiting for a box. Committing a full run on the strength of a PDF is where private-label launches go wrong, and it is avoidable for the price of a week.

Lead time, and the window that is not inside it

Production runs about 2 weeks from artwork approval, which is set out with the rest of how an order works rather than here. It runs from approval rather than from the contract date, which puts the proof stage above it: that time is before the clock starts, it is yours to spend, and it is worth spending.

One thing that is not inside it: the weathering period the maritime code requires before charcoal is packed. Our stock is weathered before an order is confirmed, so that window has been spent by the time you order — what the code requires, and the three documents to ask any supplier for explains why a supplier whose schedule has no weathering window in it is telling you something.

What you pay, and when

Payment is 30% deposit, balance against draft B/L. What matters in that sentence is not the split but when the second half falls due: draft B/L, before payment. You read the shipping document before you send the money, which is the whole of the difference, and how an order works end to end sets out the four steps: what is on the draft, what to check on it, and when the documents are released.

For a first private-label order that sequence matters more than the split does. The artwork, the proof and the print run are all behind you by the time the balance is due, so the draft is the first chance to see your own boxes described on a shipping document.

§6 · What we don't do

• We don't design artwork. We print what you supply, to our dieline. A designer in your own market will do it better and cheaper than we would.
• We don't private-label another supplier's material. One grade, ours, under your brand. No blending.
• We don't hold charcoal stock against a forecast. Production runs against a confirmed order. Boxes we store; cubes we make when you order them.
• We don't private-label for shisha, barbecue or quick-light. Those are different products with different specifications, and the reasoning is on the page about which charcoal suits bakhoor.
• We don't add an ignition accelerant, to any format. What we declare in writing, and send signed on request, is 100% coconut shell charcoal, native tapioca starch binder, no potassium nitrate, saltpetre, sulphur, borax, or any ignition accelerant. Why a brand would ask a supplier for that sentence, and what the answer partitions, is on the quick-light comparison.

§7 · Questions buyers actually ask

Can I start with fewer boxes than the minimum?

Not at offset, and we do not offer digital printing. Digital has a much lower minimum and a much higher unit cost, and for a first, small run a print broker in your own market may genuinely be the better answer. We would rather tell you that than take an order you regret.

Do I have to print at all?

No. Unbranded inners inside a printed master, or bulk in a plain master, are both available at the master minimum in §3. Plenty of first orders work that way while a brand decides what it wants to be.

What happens to boxes I don't use on this shipment?

They wait here for the next one. That is the normal pattern at the larger inner sizes and it is why the table in §2 shows how far a run goes rather than treating a large run as a problem.

Can I change the artwork between orders?

Yes, as a new design with a new setup. What you do not pay twice for is running the same design again.

Reviewed by Mohamed Noor, Director — 23 September 2026

§8 · What supports each figure on this page

Most of this page is our own process, which makes the ledger short. The rows that matter are the two that are advice rather than process, and the two figures we will not print.

§9 · Work out your artwork count first

Before you talk to anyone, including us: decide how many designs and how many sizes your launch actually needs, and multiply. The table in §2 turns that into tonnage and shipments in about a minute, and it is the number that decides whether your plan is a one-container launch or a two-year programme.

Then test the product, because packaging arithmetic is worth nothing if the cube inside the box is wrong for your blend.

Request the 1 kg sample, and bring your artwork count to the first conversation