Overcoming produce industry marking challenges

Every industry has its own challenges, and the fresh produce packing industry is no exception. What’s more, every produce supplier has their own unique needs and requirements. Building on our industry know-how, comprehensive product catalog, and massive ink library, we work closely with you to find the right solution for your needs. Here are some of the common challenges we see among produce companies.

Lagging OEE metrics

Marking and labeling systems can have a negative impact of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) metrics. These can come in the form of micro-stoppages due to printing issues or mis-printed or applied marks and labels forcing re-work or waste.

Line speed too slow

Your line speed and capacity is limited by your slowest piece of equipment. Older marking equipment may not be able to keep up and still provide high quality marks.

Difficult environment

Temperature extremes and wide variations. Moisture and frequent wash downs. Produce packing facilities often present challenging environmental conditions for marking and labeling equipment.

Manual processes, lack of integration

Without a centralized controller, you will need to rely on error-prone manual updates to messages and codes along with inefficient processes for pulling information from your ERP and other back end systems.

Compliance

There are many regulations and standards that you need to comply with when marking and coding your products, such as GS1 standards, FDA regulations, and more.

Produce traceability made easy with reliable marking, integration

From farm to table, the industry led Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) depends on highly readable, high-quality durable mark — and having the right mark on every bag, case or carton that leaves your facility.

This means high-quality printing equipment and inks combined with automated print controllers that are easy to use and integrate seamlessly with existing printers, barcode readers, and vision systems. Ideally, your printing system should also integrate with ERP systems to more efficiently comply with PTI and to help manage any potential recalls.

Make marking headaches a thing of the past

Powered by MPERIA® controllers, our solutions will help you increase production speed and efficiency, while setting you up for growth.

MPERIA is the world’s only universal product ID controller because it works with virtually any third-party printers and accessories. It can control multiple types of print technologies, labelers, verification systems and more on the same line, or across multiple lines. This gives you the flexibility to add new lines quickly and easily.

Our high-resolution printers like the MPERIA L-Series thermal inkjet (TIJ) and the MPERIA T-Series piezo inkjet (PIJ) deliver the crisp, legible marks you need for your traceability initiatives and 2D barcodes. Our reliable, well-proven technology maximizes uptime and produces clear readable marks. Our printers pair with our large catalog of inks, including environmentally friendly and FDA approved inks, that are specially developed for optimal performance in our equipment.

If you require labeling alongside or instead of printers, the A-Series is the industrial label print and apply system you’ve been looking for. The A-Series provides consistent and precise label placement with configurations for virtually any application. Once applied, the system automatically validates code readability to ensure quality.

Real results you can measure mark after mark

Upgrading older, high-maintenance marking and labeling systems and moving to modern automated systems from Matthews pays off in measurable ways for produce suppliers. Here are three examples:

Porterville Citrus

This premier packager of multiple citrus fruits reduced consumable expenses 80% and centralized marking operations to realize additional cost savings.

Richard Bagdasarian, Inc.

A top Sunkist supplier, Bagdasarian boosted production capacity by 30% after automating with MPERIA and the A-Series automated print and apply labeler.

Mt. Olive Pickle

This top producer of pickles and peppers reduced marking-related downtime by nearly 75% by moving to a Matthews printing solution.

With results like these, there’s little wonder Matthews Marking Systems is the go-to supplier for the produce industry. And make no mistake, we can deliver similar results for you.