MasterTag is rebuilding its operations around a simple idea: straight lines.
For decades, the horticultural tag and label maker has stretched across mismatched buildings, worked around five additions to a plant built in 1939, and zigzagged product flow between departments.
In 2026, that ends. The company is finishing a new production facility that will physically connect MasterTag’s administration offices — the “farmhouse” built in 2001 — with its longstanding fulfillment center, forming one unified campus.
Julie Rice, Senior Director of Operations, described today’s process as looking like “a zigzag or spaghetti.” The new facility straightens that out.
Raw material will enter on the north side, move step-by-step through production, and exit directly into the warehouse before heading to the shipping docks.
The streamlined path eliminates bottlenecks and creates space for both equipment and work in progress (WIP) — the printed and cut material that currently piles up without a proper staging area.
“We’ll have clearer pathways now, a lot less congestion,” Rice said.
The expansion’s benefits extend beyond daily operations. A larger footprint means room for new equipment, flexibility to meet changing market demands, and more opportunities to say yes to customers.
“That opportunity for future growth and expansion is much more possible,” Rice said.
Not only was the original production site completely landlocked, but it also sat a mile down the road and had five different roof lines, a quirk that complicated moving large equipment.
The new facility eliminates those hurdles, adding more than 60,000 square feet — two and a half times the size of the old plant — all under a single roofline.
How It Started
The expansion plan took shape even before MasterTag’s acquisition was finalized. Rice recalled giving Geoff Martin, CEO of Avery’s parent company, a quiet walkthrough of the production floor.
“He’s a long-time printer,” Rice said. “He started as a printer when he was a young man, so he knows printing very well. And he’s the CEO of the largest printing company in the world.”
It didn’t take Martin long to recognize MasterTag’s potential. “I’ll bet he didn’t take five steps, and he stopped. He looked left, and he looked right, and he looked back at me, and he said, ‘You guys need more space?’ And I said, ‘Yes, we do.’”
From that moment, the expansion became part of the acquisition plan. “It never left the table,” Rice said. “They didn’t say, oh, maybe we’ll build you a new building, and then later change their mind. They stuck with it after they acquired us.”
That immediate alignment set the tone for the partnership. “They saw it and put the puzzle pieces together very quickly,” Rice said. “I didn’t expect him to say that right out of the gate… but he didn’t hesitate. It was quick.”
Timeline: From Drawings to Doors
2023 — Engineering and sitework.
“We spent that year doing all the engineering drawings, getting all of the site work done,” Rice said, from water flow to civil engineering.
August 2024 — Groundbreaking.
“On August 21st, we did a groundbreaking ceremony, and we started moving soil around and getting ready.”
By Christmas 2024 — Shell up.
“We had our outer shell built and some of the basic groundwork.”
2025 — Enclosed and finishing.
“We’re completely enclosed. Windows and doors are finishing right now. All of the cement work is done,” Rice said, adding, “We’ll probably consider it complete by the end of ‘25.”
Spring 2026 — Move-in.
“We won’t try to move into it [at the beginning of the year] because of our seasonality in horticulture,” Rice said. “We should be in and ready to go by June 1st. By mid June of ‘26, we should be doing full production in the facility.”
A Facility That Fits the Vision
MasterTag built the new facility to eliminate extra steps and bottlenecks — a core Lean principle.
The expected payoff is immediate: “Faster shipping times, shorter lead times, and then of course, taking on more market,” Rice said.
By uniting production and fulfillment on a single campus, MasterTag eliminates the mile that once separated them. Stock product and custom orders will now move just steps apart, allowing shipments to leave together.
The building itself embodies Lean principles. “There are no walls in this building. It’s completely open,” Rice said. “I’m super excited about the visual factory that we’ll gain.”
The Employee Experience: More Light, More Space, and Simpler Routines
Rice placed employee experience at the top of the benefits list.
“From an employee standpoint, the largest thing we will have is a brand new break room. We’ll have all new furniture in there. They’ll have a brand new locker room that they’ve never had before. The bathrooms are three times the size of what they have right now at our current facility,” she said.
The new building also brings in natural light and a sense of openness that the current plant lacks.
“In our current facility, the production floor has no windows,” Rice said.
By contrast, the new building is “full of windows,” including the largest door at the north end of the facility (which is a full wall of glass).
Even the small design choices aim to improve everyday routines: an automatic, touchless door between offices and production, doorless restroom entries like you see in airports, and automatic sink-dryer stations. Outside, employees will gain a patio with a covered area to relax during breaks.
From Heat Capture to EV Charging
Sustainability was built into the project from the ground up.
One example: the new plant captures heat generated by its own machines and recycles it back into the system to offset winter heating costs.
“It is all temperature-controlled with a much more sophisticated system than we had before. And the lighting, of course, is all new,” Rice said.
Material choices follow the same philosophy. Flooring and chairs include recycled content, while recycling stations will be added to the new break room.
On the production side, MasterTag continues to recycle its production scrap, input materials, and other reusable components, extending practices already in place.
Water management was designed into the site plan back in 2023, with runoff directed to retention ponds. Inside, the building will feature water-bottle filling stations.
And the sustainable upgrades don’t stop at the building. “We are installing [two] electric car charging stations in the new parking lot,” Rice said. The stations were partially funded through a grant.
The Road Ahead
MasterTag’s expansion complements its broader growth plans in the horticulture space. “It’s always our goal to grow and offer new solutions to our market,” Rice said.
The added space “will position us more favorably for those new markets because of the increase in capacity in space.” She named the nursery market as a possible next priority vertical.
At its core, the expansion is about removing barriers to growth.
“There’s going to be a lot of empty floor,” Rice said. “When the opportunities come, as we need to install more equipment or we need to expand the current equipment that we have, we won’t be restricted.”
MasterTag plans to be fully out of the old, mile-away plant by mid-2026. “My hope is we’re completely out by July of ‘26,” Rice said. The future of that building remains open: “We don’t know yet.”
In the near term, the team is mapping a careful extraction sequence because of the site’s unusual geometry.
A Long-Held Plan, Finally Realized
The “one campus” concept isn’t new. Rice helped design it 25 years ago.
“In 2000, when we sat down with the architect to draw The Farmhouse, we drew a master campus,” she said. “We built this in 2001… and the master campus did show the production facility going off the back side.”
Back then, as a privately held company, “we were just really fortunate that when [the owner, Rick Hughes, Jr.] did sell us, those who took us over said, ‘That’s a great idea, we have that same vision, we see it, and we’re gonna do it.’”
For Rice, who has spent 35 years at MasterTag, the biggest win is cultural. The company has been split across buildings since the late 1990s, when growth forced departments to peel off.
That separation is coming to an end.
“Today, if I’m managing over in our current production facility and I have a question, I have to email somebody, or pick up a phone, or jump in a car and drive over… But to be able to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll go find that manager and ask him a question?’” she said, “I think that’s probably the entire company’s excitement, is for us all to be together again.”
For Rice, that excitement runs even deeper.
“Mine is squarely on employee satisfaction and the lean, no-walls, straight-line space,” Rice said. “We’re very excited to all be in the same building.”
