Custom project  / Hospitality
Their manufacturer closed. The product could not.
Cracker Barrel's supplier of fifteen years went under during Covid. The branded key coil their staff carry had to be reproduced exactly, at the same price, without a gap in supply.
- Customer
- Cracker Barrel, via a supply partner
- Sector
- Hospitality
- What we built
- Hot-foil-stamped bungee key coil
- Enquiry to delivery
- 4 to 6 months
Why this wasn't a catalogue order
Not every custom project starts with an invention. This one started with a disappearance: a long-standing manufacturer closed during Covid and took a product with it that thousands of employees used every shift. The brief was the hardest kind to satisfy — change nothing.
The coil keeps an employee swipe card secured to the person carrying it, and carries the organisation's name in hot foil. Every specification had to match what came before, and so did the price. Their supply partner called our customer service line looking for a long-term replacement, not a quote.
What it had to do
- Match
- The outgoing coil, specification for specification
- Secure
- An employee swipe card, shift after shift
- Branding
- Organisation name, hot foil stamped
- Volume
- 50,000 units per order
- Delivery
- Inside a 48-hour window at their warehouse
What we made
The same product, which sounds simple and is not. Matching an existing spec means matching materials and process, and proving it before anyone commits to fifty thousand units.
- Unbranded samples sent for specification approval.
- Photography of the hot foil stamping process in place of branded samples.
- Customisation added on top of the approved base product.
The real work is logistics. Six weeks of production, then 40 to 60 days on the ocean, then a delivery window measured in hours. Stock lands at our warehouse, their partner names the 48-hour slot, and a dedicated truck goes out to hit it. We have never missed one.
Where it stands
Cracker Barrel's supply never stopped, which was the entire point. Their partner has kept ordering, and the product their staff carry is the one they always carried.