‘Working in partnership with procurement and IT meant we improved the traceability process as well as saving on labels. Piroto applied their expertise and experience in the food sector to help reengineer processes and strengthen traceability integrity.’
Our customer is a British food producer with a diverse, well-established portfolio. They supply major food retailers with premium ready meals, cooked meats and food-to-go products.
Sustainability and environmental protection are central to their strategy. These priorities shape how they operate, develop products and work with their supply chain.
Traceability, from farm to fork, is critical for our customer. Retailer audits and BRCGS accreditation are essential to their business. That makes a robust traceability tag system vital.
During a site visit, the Piroto team identified an issue that could affect traceability. Metal detectable traceability tags were being used correctly across the operation. However, non-metal detectable labels were being applied to the tags to display important information. If any label material transferred to a food product, it could create a contamination risk.
Piroto works with a wide range of food manufacturers, each with different traceability requirements. This gave the team the expertise to identify a quick, practical solution.
The team saw an opportunity to use the customer’s existing thermal printers in a different way. By printing directly onto thermal tags, our customer could eliminate the separate label and reduce the risk of label material entering the food production process.
The customer had already tried direct-to-tag printing, but it had not worked in practice. Piroto took the challenge away to investigate what was causing the issue and identify a workable solution.
To resolve the direct-to-tag printing issue, Piroto’s technical and production teams reviewed the tag design and the way it moved through the customer’s existing thermal printers. Their aim was to retain the benefits of a metal detectable traceability tag while removing the need for a separate label.
The team redesigned the loop-lock tag shape and trialled two alternative designs to determine which performed best in use. The final design replaced the standard hole at the head of the tag with a specially shaped slit. A black bar was printed on the reverse, enabling the thermal printer to ‘sense’ the print area on each tag and keep the information correctly aligned every time.
Having reviewed the customer’s existing traceability system, the team identified the practical challenges, then applied specialist food-sector expertise to improve the process. This gave our customer a stronger traceability tag solution without major operational change. The redesigned tag delivered clear benefits, including: