Over 130 years ago, the first farmers joined together to form dairy cooperatives. One of the most important of these associations is Arla Foods, which now represents around 12,800 milk-producing farmers in seven European countries and operates worldwide. Arla employs more than 19,000 people around the world who work hand in hand to produce, process and market dairy products.

The challenge

• Four million dairy products must be labelled every day
• Clean technology for food environments
• Consistent print quality even after several days of downtime

Result

• X4Jet inkjet system with print speeds of up to 240 metres per minute
• Simultaneous labelling of front and side surfaces using two twin heads
• Cartridges are very clean
• Ink cartridges are not sensitive

Arla Foods has nine locations in Germany. The largest plant, with more than 1,000 employees, is located in Pronsfeld near Bitburg in the Eifel region. Here, four million litres of raw milk are processed every day into UHT milk, milk powder, butter and mixed spreads. The precious ‘white goods’ are delivered daily by more than 160 tankers. They come not only from farmers in the Eifel, Lower Rhine and Bergisches Land regions, but also from the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

Announcement on product labelling

Around four million dairy products are manufactured in Pronsfeld every day – that's almost 3,000 units per minute. And every single package is labelled with the relevant production and expiry dates before it leaves the factory. ‘A challenge for the labelling system!’ explains Peter Bratsch, Packaging Technology Project Manager at Arla Foods: ‘In addition to reliability and cost awareness, speed and cleanliness are particularly important here.’

This responsible task was therefore entrusted to the X4Jet thermal inkjet system from Bluhm Weber Group. This ink cartridge technology from Bluhm Weber's own Markoprint production not only works extremely cleanly, but also very quickly: depending on the cartridge technology used, products can be labelled at a printing speed of up to 240 metres per minute. At the same time, the cartridges, which are familiar from inkjet printers at home, can be changed with almost white gloves, as they are so clean to handle. After extensive testing, it soon became clear to Peter Bartsch: ‘There is no cleaner solution for printing on cartons.’

Clean, fast and cost-conscious printing

What's more, the X4Jet is very cost-effective because it completely eliminates the need for labels in carton marking. The printing system can control up to four printheads simultaneously. And since the printheads from Hewlett Packard and Funai achieve print heights of 12.5 millimetres, all types of fonts, logos and even barcodes can be printed on the desired packaging at a maximum total height of 50 millimetres and a resolution of up to 600 dpi. With print heads from Trident, it would even be possible to print up to 400 millimetres high, although this would require a lower resolution of 300 dpi.

However, the four print heads can also work independently of each other: at Arla Foods, the Markoprint X4Jet controls two twin heads with marking sizes of 25 millimetres each at different stations. This allows the front and side of a carton to be printed with the best-before date and batch information simultaneously from a single system. And to ensure that the distance to products of different sizes is always the same, the print heads are mounted on a spring-loaded base plate. Thanks to this ‘flex bracket’, the print heads can be moved horizontally by up to 20 millimetres. A carton approaching on the conveyor belt pushes the print head to the side and guides it accordingly.

The X4Jet control unit is operated via a single large rotary wheel – the ‘toggle wheel’. This allows settings to be selected and functions to be confirmed intuitively by turning and pressing. Arla employees can also use the control wheel to change data such as batch numbers at short notice. The print data is created in advance using the iDesign software on a normal PC and then transferred to the printer via RS232, Ethernet or USB interface.

Overview thanks to networked printers

However, Heinz Arens, responsible for printing systems at Arla Foods, wants to simplify and speed up this process in the future: ‘We are planning to network our X4Jet systems so that we can keep track of all printers from a single computer.’ With the appropriate software from Bluhm Weber Group, this is no problem: all printers appear as icons with their exact location on the screen. At a glance, you can see which printer is currently printing which text and whether it will soon need a new ink cartridge.

Marking on other materials

But Arla Foods doesn't just label cartons: another coding system prints delivery addresses on 25-kilogramme bags for export. Eight Funai ink cartridges, stacked at different heights in a single print head, produce the required 100-millimetre typeface. This print head has been mounted on a crossbar so that it can apply its high-resolution print in both forward and reverse movements.

Another Markoprint system controls the print head: the Compactline 3.0 includes a complete industrial PC with a large touchscreen. This means that layouts can not only be selected directly on the device, but also designed in-house. Whether cardboard or paper bags, Bluhm Weber Group has the right ink for almost every product surface. The special inks adhere not only to absorbent surfaces, but also to non-absorbent surfaces such as foils or metal lids. Another advantage is that the inks can remain open for long periods without drying out or clogging the nozzles.