[China Packaging Network News] More and more manufacturers need to label food products on the product packaging, such as nutrition tables, ingredient lists. These tagging information are the first product details that consumers are concerned about before purchasing the product. If they do not pay attention, these small details will have a negative impact on the brand. High-quality manufacturers tend to be more thoughtful in the details, to improve consumers' good impression on the product brand, but also consider to avoid additional processes to increase the amount of information, thereby dragging capacity issues.
In recent years, the global economic situation has been grim, which has led many manufacturing companies to keep their feet on the business. In stark contrast to this, the convenience of rejuvenation of the convenience food and ready-to-eat food markets is on the rise. The market demand for convenience foods and ready-to-eat foods continues to increase, and the industry's development is gratifying. According to recent market surveys, the proportion of convenience foods, ready-to-eat foods in major supermarkets and shopping malls has accounted for more than 10% of the UK market, which is the largest proportion of food sales.
Worldwide, sales of ready-to-eat foods and convenience foods have also continued to increase. Taking the British market as an example, as the largest convenience food market in Europe, the British fast food business reached a scale of 1.85 billion pounds in 2011 and is expected to increase by 35% in 2016 to 2.71 billion pounds. The huge potential market brings new directions for the industry. In the face of predictable future growth, manufacturers must also cope with the arduous task behind growth—the market's increasing demand for product identification. As manufacturers are busy improving production efficiency, increasing profit margins, and protecting brand integrity, more and more consumers are starting to pay attention to labeling information such as product composition. A large number of stakeholders, such as retailers, are also pushing this level of attention and pressure on manufacturers to strengthen the information labeling of these products. In addition, the government is actively advocating, and even legislation, that the product label must be clearly marked with the best date of consumption and effective date, etc., to ensure that when consumers purchase products, they can judge and make purchase decisions based on the label information. Under the pressure of many parties, it is not surprising that brand owners have raised a high degree of concern for the logo.
For brand owners, the primary task of protecting brand integrity and enhancing brand image is to control product quality and maintain certain monitoring of products during production and sales. On this basis, a unique product and batch number are created, and two The adoption of the form of dimension code increases the traceability of the supply chain; on the other hand, accurate and clear coding on the product packaging is the complement and promotion of the brand's overall image. Otherwise, it will affect the brand image and dissipate consumers. Comprehensive awareness of the brand. With the development and expansion of new media, the positive interaction with customers has been enhanced by reading the two-dimensional code marks on the product packaging, and it has also become a brand promotion publicity method. For ready-to-eat food and convenience food retailers, marking is an indispensable process for product retailing. It is necessary to mark the product's best food date and other information on the product, but retailers pay more attention to Use full-true fonts to harmonize with the fonts appearing on the product packaging to improve aesthetics.
For manufacturers, although regulations require that retailers and brand owners, and even consumers, emphasize the importance of labeling information, efficient and safe production is still the key to success. Labeling must match the production line, and it will not Affect high-speed production. Faced with the labeling requirements of manufacturers, there are several ways to choose from in the market. Compared with the application and output effects, there are only a few differences in this series of technologies.
Laser coder
When seeking permanent identification, laser marking opportunities are a good choice for high-speed or low-speed production lines. A series of numbers, bar codes, two-dimensional codes, and other labeling information are marked at the production speed. Laser coders are characterized by cleanliness, speed, and ease of operation. However, the
Laser Marking Machine first needs to mark the white text information on a brown background before marking, and is easily affected by the material, so it is not suitable for use in convenient and ready-to-eat food packaging.
Inkjet technology is one of the most popular and versatile solutions today. It has always been the first choice for convenience food labeling programs. It can be used to cover a wide range of infiltrated or non-permeable materials.
Hot wax ink jet printers have a certain application in convenience foods or snack food packaging, but as the production efficiency increases, manufacturers are slowly discovering the limitations of hot wax ink jet printers. In the case of extreme high-temperature operation, a longer start-up time and regular maintenance are required - stop in order to replace the burned nozzle. On the other hand, the thermal wax inkjet printer has a low resolution, and the ink-jet surface easily disappears due to friction, which affects the traceability requirements of the manufacturers in the later period.
The high-resolution, high-quality, anti-wipe labeling characteristics of the Thermal Foaming Inkjet Printer (TIJ) is the key to the labeling of ready-to-eat foods and convenience foods. These demands have also led more and more manufacturers to use thermal foams. Printers.
Thermal foaming inkjet printer is one of the most efficient and clean inkjet printing solutions. It has a high-speed, high-resolution inkjet printing experience, and it also meets the control of food packaging production lines for the production environment. The high-definition printing effect of the thermal foaming equipment mainly comes from hundreds of nozzles distributed on each nozzle, and can easily complete the printing of full-true fonts, graphics, and two-dimensional codes, matrix two-dimensional codes, bar codes, and the like. Up to 600dpi.
Referring to the efficiency of TIJ equipment, one has to mention special water-based or ethanol-based inks. The water-based or ethanol-based inks used by TIJ are certified for use in food production environments. At the time of development, a variety of substrate printing tests were conducted to further broaden the range of applicable materials, especially for packaging materials that are widely used in ready-to-eat foods and convenience foods.
Like thermal wax-type printers, the coding performance of TIJ equipment depends on the degree of fit between the product and the print head. In the printing process, the better the print head fit, the better the coding effect. In addition, TIJ devices are compact, easy to clean, and easy to integrate with existing production lines. During operation, TIJ equipment has a short start-up time and requires minimal equipment maintenance - these are the factors that manufacturers are most concerned about when seeking OEE, which further enhances the attractiveness of TIJ technology in the food packaging environment.
In the face of numerous devices, manufacturers need to understand their own needs and choose the solution that best suits their application. However, as mentioned above, the actual situation is that when manufacturers seek the most suitable solution, on the one hand, they need to consider their own needs, such as: reduce downtime and expand production; on the other hand, the need to consider product packaging as a brand image As part of this, the fuzzy coding effect will also affect the quality of the brand.
In the long run, maximizing production efficiency should be the primary goal of many manufacturers. Whether they can efficiently complete production tasks and make manufacturers stand out from their competitors will be based on the selection of smart devices to improve output and minimize downtime. The important reason. In addition, taking into account the subsequent use, it is equally important to measure the technical support capabilities of the suppliers and the consumption of materials in the later period in the investigation of equipment procurement. The selection of suppliers is actually a choice of partners, a series of food packaging environment, certified inks, after-sales support, and scientific data management systems to provide, manage, store unique product identification codes, along with production, sales, and after sales links. A series of follow-up support is often a value-added product that an excellent partner can provide.
Domino G series thermal foaming inkjet printers have significant advantages in the first and second packaging, especially suitable for instant food and convenience food packaging. Meets new requirements for traceability of product quality traceability, combined with simple, fast and accurate coding effects, suitable for complex and serialized data, graphics or coding, and is the most versatile inkjet solution. In order to meet the integration needs of different production lines, G series adopts a flexible modular design, can be equipped with up to 4 nozzles, and can also be freely combined according to customer needs.
Domino G series thermal foaming ink jet printers are designed based on actual application and optimized production of manufacturers. They are equipped with Domino's intelligent i-Tech patented technology and have an intuitive user interface. A unique smart cartridge that monitors ink conditions in real time to help customers improve their production control.
In terms of ink, Domino also provides water-based and ethanol-based inks, which can be perfectly combined with packaging materials, resist wiping, and effectively prevent damage during transportation and logistics operations.
