Product category:
General packaging materials, equipment and services
News Release from: Imaje UK | Subject: Imaje label printing systems
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 October 2001
Beer bottles labelled and coded
Wessex Craft Beers bottle over 120 different hand-brewed beers for more than 35 small brewers, each one labelled to the best professional standards.
Gloucestershire's Wessex Craft Beers bottle over 120 different hand-brewed beers for more than 35 small brewers, each one labelled to the best professional standards Until recently, best by and batch coding was overprinted on each label using a thermal transfer printer off-line but the company has now changed to on-line coding using an Imaje inkjet coder to minimise waste labels and keep up with the line speed of 6,000 bottles per hour
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 11 Jan 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Inks meet aerospace product marking standards
To meet the demands of US, Canadian and European aerospace corporations for reliable part marking by their contractors, Imaje offers a range of inks for use with its ink jet printers.
Food manufacturer crisps up its date marking
Giles Foods has tried most types of coders and printers to apply 'use by' dates and batch numbers to product packaging and have now standardised on the Imaje S7 deviated inkjet printers.
Although the demand for traditionally brewed beers is small compared to that for big brewery products, it is growing as evidenced by the number of traditionally brewed British beers appearing on supermarket shelves.
Encouraged by the success of Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the number of microbreweries and small brewers, supplying high quality, distinctive beers to local pubs in traditional barrels, has mushroomed over the past few years.
To obtain wider distribution, the beers need to be bottled but few small producers can justify the investment needed to set-up a bottling line, especially as a batch might be a low as 1500 bottles a week, to meet current hygiene and labelling legislation.
Further reading
Markers suit low or high volume production
The Imaje S7 range of deviated ink jet printers provide cost effective coding and marking for a wide range of applications in low and high volume production environments.
Ink jet printers code 500,000 units/week
St Davids Assemblies, one of the UK's largest manufacturers of kettle controls and safety cut-outs, has chosen Imaje S4+ ink jet printers to code directly onto the 500, 000 units/week.
Printing on almost any surface
Described as 'all terrain',Imaje S8 range of printers can print on virtually any surface, under the most difficult dusty, damp or hot conditions using a wide range of visible and invisible inks.
Even Dogs Hair and Geezer, two traditional beers, need the same product information labelling and best by and batch coding as beers bottled by the tens of thousands.
Wessex Craft Beers was set up in April 1998 by Gray Olliver and Alan Draisey to provide small brewers with both a bottling service and sales and marketing support based on their big company experience.
In just three years, Wessex Craft Beers has helped its carefully selected brewers win a number of awards, including this year's Guardian Bottled Beer of the Year and the Tesco Challenge.
According to Alan Draisey, this success has come from adapting 'big company' techniques to relatively small batch production.
Typically, when thermal transfer overprinting of best by and batch coding proved too slow and unreliable, Wessex decided to change to inkjet coding on the crown cap, the system used by the big breweries.
"We approached the main inkjet printer manufacturers", explained Alan Draisey, "but, because we only needed a single printer, most were not really interested in advising us on the best machine for the job.
Imaje was the only company that seemed to be prepared to work with us to get the right printer and ink combination to suit our needs.
I thought that Imaje must be a small company and was surprised to discover that it was one of the largest.
Since we installed the printer, Imaje has continued to support us and is now working on changing the ink from black to yellow so that we can code directly onto the glass bottle, rather than the cap." If you think that all beers are more or less the same, you should log on to the Wessex web site at www.wessexcraftbeers.com where you will find more than 120 hand-brewed beers, and some special ciders, many of which are not only supplied to the major supermarkets and off-licence chains but are also exported to several countries from the USA to Belgium and Spain.
Imaje UK Limited is a subsidiary of Imaje SA (part of the Dover Technologies Group), one of the world leaders in industrial coding and marking.
The company specialises in the development and distribution of continuous ink coding and print and apply systems to the food and drink, pharmaceutical, mailing, aerospace component and cable industries.
Imaje SA operates in more than 120 countries and its products and services are available through a network of 30 subsidiaries and more than 50 distributors.
• Imaje UK: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
