Edible products marker awarded Euro-patent

Sherwood Technology has been granted a European patent for its method of laser marking edible products using its revolutionary colour change technology.

Sherwood Technology, the colour change specialist, has been granted a European patent for its ground-breaking method of laser marking edible products using its revolutionary colour change technology DataLase Edible.

This novel coding, marking and printing technique is specially designed to apply a safe and high contrast image onto edible pharmaceutical and food products such as tablets, fruits and confectionery.

A few months ago, Sherwood was also awarded a US patent for this unique additive.

Previously the most common method of marking tablets or hard shell confectionery products required a mechanical embossing or surface printing method, both of which result in a significant number of rejects due to damaged/cracked product.

Non contact printing methods such as inkjet are largely unsuitable due to the spread of the ink droplets and slow drying of the ink.

There are also wide ranges of associated problems, such as maintenance and production line down-time, in addition to issues associated with maintaining printing apparatus and replacing consumables.

When dealing with sensitive products such as fresh produce, confectionery and pharmaceuticals, these problems are particularly undesirable.

Sherwood's innovative development is set to meet the challenges associated with the marking process of edible products.

DataLase Edible is a non-toxic and environmentally friendly coating or additive that uses low power CO2 lasers to produce a positive image.

The coating undergoes a safe colour-change process, creating a high contrast, stable image that is produced from 100% edible components.

Being able to mark a wide range of pharmaceutical and food products, this revolutionary method leads to considerable cost savings while significantly increasing productivity, the main benefits being: * Environmental - no production line consumables or high energy consuming labellers.

* Productivity - faster line speeds, lower costs, and less wastage (defective product).

* Applicability - compatibility with most pharmaceutical tablets/capsules; hard shelled confectionery.

* Quality - high fidelity image resolution and marking.

Andrew Jackson, Applications marketing manager for Sherwood Technology, comments: "The awarding of this European patent adds to the already established recognition of Sherwood's colour change technology as a fundamental technique for laser marking of edible pharmaceutical and food products".

"This innovative technology is available through a series of application licensing agreements and strategic partnerships.".

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