How many napkins you really use, why lint-free specification matters in foodservice, which spec fits your service style, ten questions to vet any supplier, and how to build a reorder calendar that never leaves you short.
Supplier guide
A restaurant napkin program fails in one of three ways: the napkin under-performs on the table, the price creeps up on reorder, or the shipment lands late and you are buying retail at three times the cost. All three are supplier problems, not product problems.
This guide covers how much you actually use, what "lint-free" means and why it matters in foodservice, and a ten-point checklist for evaluating any napkin supplier — including us.
Guessing leads to emergency orders. Most restaurants use 1.5–2 napkins per cover; beverage-led concepts run 2–3 per customer. A 200-cover-per-day restaurant needs roughly 300–400 napkins daily, or 9,000–12,000 per month.
Multiply by your unit price to get monthly spend, then decide your reorder point. Our napkin quantity and cost calculator does this per business type and returns a recommended spec and budget band.
| Operation | Covers / day | Napkins per cover | Monthly napkins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fine dining | 80 | 1.5 | ≈ 3,900 |
| Casual restaurant | 200 | 1.8 | ≈ 11,700 |
| Café / beverage-led | 300 | 2.5 | ≈ 24,400 |
| Hotel banquet (weekend) | 400 | 1.5 | event-based |
| QSR / takeaway | 500 | 2.0 | ≈ 32,500 |
Figures assume 30 trading days and illustrate planning only. Use the calculator with your own numbers.
Standard tissue napkins shed short cellulose fibres. On a plate nobody notices. On a wine glass, a dark plate or a polished surface, those fibres are visible and a guest notices immediately. In foodservice this shows up as: fibres on stemware during table setup, residue when wiping a table between sittings, and lint on dark tableware.
A lint-free foodservice napkin is built to avoid that — different fibre bonding, often airlaid or nonwoven, so the surface does not shed. It is the specification to ask for when napkins are used for anything beyond sitting on a lap: glassware, table wipe-down, plating touch-ups.
How to test it yourself: take a sample napkin, dampen it slightly, and rub it firmly ten times across a clean dark glass or a black plate. Then hold it up to the light. If you can see fibres, it is not lint-free enough for front-of-house use.
Ask these of any napkin supplier, including us. The quality of the answers tells you more than any brochure.
The most expensive napkin you will ever buy is the one you purchase retail because a shipment landed late. Build the calendar backwards:
| Stage | Duration | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry to quote | Same day | Day 0 |
| Digital proof approval | 24 hours | Day 1 |
| Physical sample (optional) | 5–7 days | Day 8 |
| Bulk production | 10–15 days | Day 23 |
| Sea freight | 25–40 days | Day 48–63 |
Set your reorder trigger at consumption × 9 weeks for sea freight. Air freight at 7–12 days is the fallback for an unexpected spike, but it costs more per piece — it is insurance, not a plan.
Send material, size, ply, fold, colour or artwork, quantity per design, packing requirement, destination and Incoterm. That is enough for us to return an EXW/FOB quote the same working day. If you are unsure of the material, describe the service — we will recommend a spec and quote alternatives side by side.
Related reading: wholesale napkin buyer's guide · airlaid vs paper napkins · custom printed napkin guide
Factory-direct
Tell us material, size, ply, print and quantity — we reply with an EXW/FOB quote the same working day. MOQ from 5,000 pcs per design. Free sample available (buyer covers shipping).
