Most salad sauces in the supermarket contain chemical food additives called emulsifiers which prevent the ingredients from separating, potentially creating an unsightly mess. Jan Fritz, MD of Saucenfritz UG in Berlin, has discovered, however, that chemistry is not unavoidable here. It is as if he has managed to square the circle. Just how he did this, however, remains his closely guarded trade secret.

Special ink for marking on metals

The Bluhm Systeme GmbH, Rheinbreitbach, experts on marking of products and packaging also have a special success story to tell: Jan Fritz had been searching for an affordable and yet reliable and flexible system to code the metal lids of his sauce bottles. Bluhm’s recommendation was the X1Jet inkjet printer, whose ink was thus far restricted to absorbent surfaces such as paper or cardboard. A special ink solution, however, will now allow the compact X1Jet to print on metal, abrasion-proof and durably.

It was only three years ago when Jan Fritz founded his company Saucenfritz, the bio-brand with the claim to hand crafted and carefully blended gourmet sauces. The ingredients comprise exclusively high quality and especially also natural products which are carefully hand-processed in his modest Berlin shop, with no additives or preservatives. The assortment includes sauces for various tastes, all based on crème fraîche, yoghurt, soy or vegetable juice. The vegetarian-vegan products may be enjoyed either pure or used to refine dishes, as salad dressing or as dip. His gourmet sauces are popular for spicing of sandwiches, wraps or pan-fry dishes, also to marinate fish, meat or vegetables.

Tiny printer, huge benefits

As not unusual in new production facilities, all the steps at Saucenfritz were initially by hand. Staff were applying labels to bottles and flasks by hand. A stamp was used to apply information on the batch and shelf life. Before long, this needed to change, explains Jan Fritz: “Our extraordinary success in the market meant that these process steps needed to be automated to keep pace with growing production.“

Many smaller shops and production facilities are familiar with the situation Jan Fritz is describing here. Quality products and appropriate marketing will increase the demands on production. The need for automation increases in tandem. This applies to all the manufacturing processes – including the marking of products. To meet these needs, Bluhm Systeme has developed its “first time user” model, the X1Jet inkjet printing system. It is compact enough to be fast and simple to implement. The printer is attached to the conveyer and an ink cartridge is inserted. An integrated photocell will recognise passing products and automatically trigger printing.

Saucenfritz uses an HP print head for razor-sharp coding at speeds up to 90 metres per minute. The equipment will print text up to 12.5 mm high. i-Design software is part of the deal, included free of charge and running on any PC to create the desired text, barcodes or logos. PC boffins such as the ones with Saucenfritz will know how to quickly use the text editor to modify existing print files. These data may then be transferred to the printer via USB, Ethernet or EIA232 serial interface. X1 memory has capacity for up to nine different text messages. Data such as time, date and running number will update automatically.

“Hothead”: up to 18 000 ink droplets per second

A Hewlett Packard ink cartridge, using the “thermal inkjet” printing technology, is the printing system used at Saucenfritz. Heater elements in the tiny jet chambers of these cartridges will generate pulses of heat within a “heating time” of two microseconds. Since each of these pulses ejects a single droplet from its jet, up to 18 000 droplets of ink may be ejected per second. Since the types of ink traditionally used in these printing systems were predominantly water based, they were suitable especially for printing on absorbent surfaces such as cartons or folding boxes.

Saucenfritz’s requirement, however, was to apply batch and shelf-life data directly to his non-absorbent metal bottle-tops. This is why the tinkerers at Bluhm Systeme developed an ink which will adhere well to these surfaces also. The printhead is part of the ink cartridge. This has the advantage that a brand new printhead will be included in the cartridge exchange.

Big plans? No problem!

Should Jan Fritz in future wish to, for instance, mark his packing boxes much larger, he would need to simply fit the X1JET with a Trident or XAAR printhead. These printheads have the advantage of printing text up to respectively 50 and 100 mm high. These printheads use the Piezo printing technology, as opposed to the thermal technology, with Piezo membranes in the printhead creating the ink droplets. This, however, limits the printing resolution to 300 dpi.

For a resolution of 600 dpi and the same height of printed text, the XB8Jet system will be the answer. This will also allow several HP or Lexmark printheads to be grouped and centrally controlled. With up to eight printheads deployed in synchronism, printed text heights are possible up to 100 mm. These systems will simultaneously also reduce storage costs: Printing on packing boxes will allow storage to be reduced to only a few neutral boxes.

All this, however, are future dreams. “Our creative chefs are enthusiastically working on other delicious creations”, enthuses Jan Fritz. “The squaring of circles will surely continue in our production!” Saucenfritz is certainly now well prepared on the product marking front. And the Bluhm tinkerers are ready in their starting blocks should future challenges arise.