diff --git a/src/make.tcl b/src/make.tcl
index cf20f002..2b99d17a 100644
--- a/src/make.tcl
+++ b/src/make.tcl
@@ -2894,6 +2894,7 @@ foreach vfstail $vfs_tails {
                                 file copy -force $building_runtime $raw_runtime
                             }
                         } else {
+                            package require punk::zip
                             #tcl we are calling with doesn't have zipfs - can't mount
                             puts stderr "WARNING: tcl shell '[info nameofexecutable]' being used to build doesn't have zipfs - falling back to punk::zip::extract_preamble"
                             punk::zip::extract_preamble $building_runtime $raw_runtime $buildfolder/extracted_$runtime_fullname.zip