Printing and Coding Salty Snack Packages

Impulse purchases of consumers are what causes snack companies to be in heavy competition, and capturing sales means making the most of their brands. Before that bag of chips ever gets to the shelf, and entire team of brand marketers are working to maximize the packaging artwork for marketing and promotional purposes. The last thing they want is a poor-quality code that could detract from the package or dilute the marketing message.

Coding Salty SnackAt Griffin Rutgers, we understand the importance of excellent print quality and seeing that you achieve your operational goals.  We offer the perfect combination of technology, expertise and service options when it comes to your choice for printing and coding salty snack packages and other products.

As a manufacturer, it’s important to understand that each piece of coding technology produces a code of differing appearance. A major benefit of using TTO (thermal transfer overprinter) is that it offers high resolution content as they can print a resolution of 300 dots per inch – DPI – or 12 dots per millimeter.

TTO is the ideal coding solution for bag applications as it is designed to print high quality codes on flat, thin, flexible films. Printing on roll stock before the bags are formed allows the printed film to be formed into various types of packaging such as zipper, gusseted, stand up, 4-sided or other pouch variations.

Recently, the privately owned and family-oriented company, Utz, made a move to thermal-transfer overprinting as their coding method of choice for its primary packages of salty snacks. The reason: It could realize a 33% savings on maintenance and reduce its downtime for code changes as a hot stamp code block. For the machine operators, the printing decision is a real time saver, as a code-block change could take the company a minimum of five minutes, which could equal costly downtime for a production line marking 100-plus potato chip and snack bags per minute.

Using TTO on one of Utz’s many bagging lines, the product is marked with the bagstock with a price, a date and Utz-specific information such as a lot number or a manufacturer code.

Changing a code before thermal-transfer printers were added to the plant required the assistance of tweezers and wrenches, which only increased the tediousness of the task. If a code was printed incorrectly, the misprinted bags had to be destroyed, and the product had to be repackaged, racking up waste in both materials and time.

TTO will produce crisp coding on a consistent basis even in high line speeds. Code changes simply require a few taps of a touchscreen to create the new price and expiration date. That means downtime for code changes and lost production have virtually disappeared.

Coding, labeling, and marking salty snack foods and candy/confection products requires unique product identification for complete supply chain traceability, retail sale, as well as clear, precise print to enhance overall branding. At Griffin Rutgers, we can put our fifty years of experience to work in providing the exact piece of equipment for printing and coding salty snack packages and other products.

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