Ingredient Lists and Nutritional Panels

Ingredient Lists and Nutritional Panels are a requirement for most packaged food products sold in Australia.  Information on the mandatory labelling requirements can be found at Food Standards ANZ website. This alphanumeric human-readable text needs to be legible for the end consumer. It is generally printed with the artwork on the primary packaging, although it is possible to be printed or applied on the production line.

A simple on-line option is apply a pre-printed label with all ingredients and nutritional information on to the retail packaging using a Label Applicator (LA).   A more flexible option is to print the required information on to a generic label in real-time and then apply this label on to your packaging using a Label Printer Applicator (LPA).

Many snack food and baked goods manufacturers take advantage of having a generic company branded film and use Thermal Transfer Overprinter (TTO) to print the product specific variable information, including barcodes and date code information, on to the generic film. Owing to the volume of information required to be printed, it is not generally feasible to use Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) or Laser Coders for this application.

Matthews specialises in integrating coding equipment into your production line, either with other production line equipment or your overall business systems to enhance the efficiency of your entire business. All of our date coding solutions can be integrated in to our iDSnet packaging code management solution.

Common technologies for printing ingredients and nutritional panels

High resolution printing
High Resolution Printing
High Resolution Printing can be used on products as well as cartons for text and graphics.
Labelling fresh produce
Label Applicator (LA)
Label Applicator (LA) labelling systems apply pre-printed pressure-sensitive labels onto products.
Printing and applying labels to cartons
Label Printer Applicator (LPA)
LPA prints onto thermal transfer labels or thermal direct labels, then automatically applies those labels to an item. Ideal for printing barcode labels.
Datecoding using laser technology
Laser
Lasers are a very fast way to print high quality permanent codes on a vast range of substrates.
TTO printer printing a barcode
Thermal Transfer Overprinting (TTO)
Thermal Transfer Overprinters (TTO) are typically used for coding on to flexible packaging films and self-adhesive labels.