Thornton's Confectionery Install SmartDate

Top confectionery manufacturer Thornton's has installed a MARKEM SmartDate thermal transfer printer for coding on packages of its extensive range of sweets, supplied both to its own shops and many of the UK's leading retailers.

The SmartDate is installed on a Sandiacre vertical form fill seal bag maker and codes a variety of information including lot numbers and best before end dates depending on the particular requirements of each product.

With such a wide variety of products being coded, Thorntons says the SmartDate's ease and speed of code changeover is major benefit over the hot foil coder used previously. Equally important, changeover is now a much cleaner operation.

"The SmartDate is user-friendly and easy to program with the information required for day-to-day operations", says Peter Mitchell, Thorntons' Development Engineer. "Code changes can now be carried out very quickly and, because there are no type blocks and no inky ribbons to fiddle with, the process is far less messy than previously".

Coding of packs is also cleaner and clearer, an important aspect for Thorntons' high product quality standards.

In addition, MARKEM says the more gently coding action of SmartDate removes any danger of bags which are being coded becoming 'perforated' in any way when the code is applied. The tiny holes that can be caused by the too aggressive stamping of the code by other methods are difficult to detect, even via a seal tester, yet can lead to product becoming stale more quickly.

"We have been very pleased with the results so far of our first SmartDate" concludes Mr Mitchell. "It has proved a fast, efficient and cleaner method of coding for our products."

MARKEM Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing in-plant printing systems, supplies and services for product marking and decorating, in industries including food packaging, automotive, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. With more than 1,500 employees, MARKEM operates from headquarters in Keene, N.H., USA, and at additional manufacturing facilities in England, Australia and Japan. MARKEM has subsidiaries in 12 countries, and agents and representatives in 25 other countries.