Let’s Dish Boosts Sales & Profit Margins with In-House Label Production - Case Study

Industry:
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota

Let’s Dish is a local business with six stores in the Twin Cities area, Minnesota.

The company offers convenient, frozen home cooked meal kits. Their wide variety of delicious, simple-to-make dinners feature quality ingredients—and their unique approach has made them a popular food option in the Twin Cities.

Until recently, they were dependent on external manufacturers for all of their labels. The designs were lackluster and failed to attract enough customers. The labels were too costly and required high minimum order quantities. These problems cut heavily into the company’s profits and hurt their efficiency.

Then, Let’s Dish brought their label production in-house with Afinia Label’s L801 Color Label Printer. It was transformative from the first day.

  • More marketable packaging
  • Higher sales and profit margins
  • Eliminated label waste

Label outsourcing stunts business growth

Forecasting inventory was a major challenge for the team at Let’s Dish. Because their extensive menu changes frequently, outsourcing labels is expensive and time consuming. Minimum order quantities from traditional label companies impacted profits because it resulted in purchasing more labels than were needed. This was also wasteful; unused labels would simply have to be thrown away.

Let’s Dish needed a solution that allowed them to create the exact number of labels needed for every unique product, with the flexibility to cook new recipes or to change ingredients without incurring extra costs.

They needed on-site, on-demand label printing. 

At the same time, they needed packaging that demonstrated the exceptional quality of their meals. It needed to look and feel professional, withstand the rigors of freeze storage over several months, and be affordable enough to improve profit margins.

Working with Steve Lusso from Integrity Technical Services, a local Afinia Label dealer in Minnesota, Let’s Dish was able to accomplish all of their goals.

A game changer for demand and profitability

Collaborating with Integrity Technical Services made everything easy. As a local dealer, Steve was relatable, responsive, and able to provide prompt, in-person support not offered by online retailers.

The two biggest concerns for Let’s Dish were on-demand printing (to ​​​​​​​eliminate minimum orders and high costs) and high-quality labels that demonstrated the quality of the product and attracted shoppers.

Steve recommended the L801 color label printer: a best-in-class industrial printer that met every requirement.

First and foremost, it’s fast. By loading the printer with blank label stock, Let’s Dish can quickly produce labels for any of its products on-demand. The new-look labels contain everything customers need to know about the product:

  • Enticing product description
  • Serving size & cooking instructions
  • Expiration date
  • Nutritional data, ingredients, and allergens
  • Beautiful full-color imagery of the cooked meal

All of this data can be varied for new recipes or alternative ingredients. This eliminates excess stock. Label rolls provided by Steve are extremely resilient to cold, moisture and thaw conditions.

Critically, Let’s Dish now has packaging designs that they and their customers adore.

“Our meals look professional and organized and truly improve the customer experience. The label printer gives us the flexibility we need to run our business and make our products marketable and attractive.  We are grateful for this valuable tool.”

—Katie Suttenburg, VP Operations and Development, Let’s Dish

Adding a second printer

Let’s Dish found so much success with their first L801, they purchased another one for order influxes from their stores. The additional printer gives them the flexibility to scale-up production when large orders are received. Orders are filled quickly without affecting daily output.

Most importantly, the cost per label has been dramatically reduced: not only is Let’s Dish selling more of its amazing meals, they’re making more profit on them too.


If your business is facing similar challenges to Let’s Dish, use the form below to inquire about our products or share your situation, and we’ll do our best to help.

Curious about the quality? Request a free sample and test our world-class labels for yourself.