New labelling solution for the food industry

Your product range is expanding, your volumes are increasing and/or more and more customers want a private label product. So, as a manufacturer, how can you ensure an efficient and flawless labelling process? Fruity Line opted for a new food industry solution: an automatic print & apply system by Cikam interfaced with ReflexSystems’ software.

Every manufacturing company eventually reaches a turning point, but when is the right time to switch from manual labelling to an automated system? Fruity Line faced that same decision. Less than a decade after its foundation in 2008, the company has grown into the European market leader in freshly squeezed premium fruit/vegetable juices and smoothies. 

‘Every company wants to work with one single system’

Fruity Line’s volumes are increasing, and its product range is expanding too. “Nowadays we work with a wide variety of formulations, bottle formats, cap colours and products. This means a huge diversity in terms of labels; it became too much to do manually,” says Leo van den Bovenkamp, who is responsible for projects and automation. So he went in search of a solution for automatic batch labelling which would work with data directly imported from Fruity Line’s ERP system, “because every company wants to work with one single system”. There was just one problem: no such solution existed.

Software and hardware interface

“Fruity Line works with Reflex 3000, our software package that is already being used by 600 companies in the food sector,” comments Quintijn Knepper, Operational Director of ReflexSystems. “Including within companies in meat, fresh produce, ready meals, dairy and also wholesalers. This package enables everything to be automated. Purchasing, sales, inventory, formulations, tracking & tracing, scanning, order picking – Reflex 3000 enables you to access and manage all your data quickly and easily.”

A first for Fruity Line

Fruity Line is the first company in the Netherlands to work with the new interface between the ReflexSystems software and Cikam’s print & apply system. “Tip Top Catering and Banket Partners have also recently purchased this labelling solution,” comments Andrew Citroen, Managing Director of Cikam. “It’s a relatively easy way to improve the efficiency in your production process.” And that’s not only true for small manufacturing companies, but also for the big players in the food industry. Citroen: “Fruity Line is a good example of a company with strong growth that has to continuously improve in terms of efficiency and engineering. We can provide the company with quick and agile support by adapting and scaling up our systems as necessary, such as by connecting two input lines to feed into a single high-speed labelling line.” That agility is precisely what Fruity Line needs, according to Project Manager Leo van den Bovenkamp: “All production companies are busy and hectic environments, which is why we want to work with non-bureaucratic suppliers who are as flexible as we are, like Cikam. Just roll up your sleeves and get stuck in – that attitude typifies the food industry, and definitely our company."

Another thing that typifies this market is strict legislation. Citroen: “The legal requirements change regularly, which means that the label layouts have to be changed too – but that’s done in no time thanks to this solution.” Citroen is also seeing greater wants and needs relating to tracking & tracing: “That’s why we’re now working with Fruity Line to see whether we can use an inkjet printer to apply a unique one-line code to each bottle on the filling lines.” Van den Bovenkamp: “Cikam is helping us to take things to the next level in terms of the quality and manageability of tracking & tracing and labelling.”

‘I know for certain that the label contains the right information’

Following Fruity Line’s enquiry, ReflexSystems came into contact with Cikam. “We supply a wide range of print & apply systems which are also very suitable for use in the food sector,” says Managing Director Andrew Citroen. Knepper: “In close collaboration we developed an interface which enables Cikam’s hardware to be connected to our software. Together, we now fill a gap in the market for high-end labelling. This solution can be implemented by any company in the food industry at a relatively low level of investment.”

Preventing mistakes

Being sued is every food company’s biggest fear. “And it’s easy to make a mistake if you’re labelling by hand,” states Van den Bovenkamp. “There’s always a chance of human error, and some products look very similar. Before you know it, a pallet full of wrongly labelled goods could be on its way to a customer. Or imagine if a product containing an allergen is labelled incorrectly. That can have major consequences.”
“Mistakes are very expensive,” agrees Knepper, “not only in terms of the cost of solving the problem, but also the potential damage to your reputation. If you use the Cikam system to label your products directly – based on the data from Reflex 3000 – you can be 99.9% certain that the right information is on the right product. And if you make any changes in Reflex 3000, the updated information is automatically included on the very next label printed.”

“I don’t even need to check it; I know for sure that everything will be done properly,” says Van den Bovenkamp, who used to have to input every change twice – once in the ERP system and once in the separate label system for customers. “In view of the huge diversity of products the chance of error was too high, plus it was too laborious.” The solution by Cikam and ReflexSystems also enables Fruity Line to capitalise on trends in the food industry, such as the rising demand for private labels. Knepper: “Customers want your product, but under their own label. That places ever-greater demands on your label management; you have to have things under control,” – and nowadays they do at Fruity Line. Van den Bovenkamp: “If a new customer wants 40 different products, I only have to create one label layout in Reflex 3000. The Cikam system then extracts the right data per product from Reflex 3000 – from product code to best-before date.”

Fast and flexible

The labels are printed and applied in an in-line system, as soon as the bottles have been shrink-wrapped in the shrink tunnel. “The system is fast; we’re approaching 50 ‘shrinks’ per minute,” says Van den Bovenkamp. The labelling system is flexible too. “A line like you see within big production facilities, where they produce large volumes of one product type after another, is no good to us. We can have as many as 60 changeovers a day, because there are big differences in our formats too. One run might have six big bottles per shrink and the next could have 20 small ones, so all our lines must facilitate quick and easy changeovers.” 

The Cikam and ReflexSystems solution is currently running on just one of Fruity Line’s production lines. “But we also want to implement it on our other lines,” states Van den Bovenkamp, “and we’ve already purchased the next two lines. That’s right; we’re still growing!”

Juice like on a lazy Sunday morning

Fruity Line squeezes and purees tens of thousands of kilos of fruit and vegetables every day at its production facility in Ochten. “We produce a good honest product without additives, while retaining the flavour,” states Project Manager Leo van den Bovenkamp. “Our juices and smoothies are fresh products just like you would make in your own kitchen on a lazy Sunday morning, but they have a longer shelf life thanks to high-pressure processing.”

www.fruity-line.nl
www.cikam.nl
www.reflex-systems.nl

From left to right: Quintijn Knepper (ReflexSystems), Leo van den Bovenkamp (Fruity Line) and Andrew Citroen (Cikam).