Flexible Packaging Printing, Coding and Marking

The title of Flexible Packaging Materials refers to materials that are delivered to a packaging operation in roll form. Such roll form packaging materials could be flexible film to form snack bags, or it could be paper backed foil or raw aluminum foil for use in pharmaceutical or nutritional packaging. No matter the basic nature of the material, virtually all such packaging forms require some sort of additional information to be added in the late stage of package completion.

Batch or Lot Numbering and Expiration Date coding is an almost universal requirement for many forms of product packaging. The ability to track individual batches or lots has become a critical part of packaging safety. The ability to find and recall specific parts of a production “run” is critical to consumer safety and business protection. The Lot Number and Expiration Date on a bottle of pills or the Best If Used By Date on a bag of potato chips has become an accepted part of the modern shopping psyche of today’s consumers. This information needs to be added to the pre-printed packaging material immediately prior to the product being released/shipped for sale.