The concept has been developed in collaboration with Grampian Country FoodGroup, a leading food processor in the UK, and following the pressures from supermarket chains such as Tesco.
Veri-PACK is unique quality control inspection System that Dimaco claims automatically ensures quality control and validation of the label and theoverprinted data including the traceability code at line speeds. It can therefore prevent wrongly labelled and badly printed packs fromreaching the consumer.
The overprinted data is verified and archived to protect food processorsagainst future litigation claims. Packs, which do not conform to pre-set quality standards, are automatically rejected from the line thus ensuring only inspected and validated good packs are processed through to the tray loaders.
Veri-PACK brings additional business benefits for food processors and retailers in terms of reduced level of manual checks, automatic capture and less wastage of fresh produce.
The launch comes just as issues of food safety and traceability are becoming mainstream industry and consumer concerns. From the manufacturer through the distributor to the end consumer, food products must be clearly identifiable and traceable in order to fulfill EC regulations.
As a consequence food manufacturers and retailers are investingmassively in the implementation of traceability tools and recall process to ensure a total quality approach.
Barcode readability is a major current concern of food manufacturers and retailers. Automated lines speeds of 120 packs/minute and lessoperators are now typical, and this over-printed data is becoming more important with the increased trend in Europe to fresh short shelf life products and convenience foods.
Clearly therefore, the industry is moving on from issues of just good quality and brand protection. General due diligent requirements are being replaced by legislation, fines and product recalls. It is difficult for manufacturers to reduce costs and meet these new demands without some degree of automation.
Dimaco believes that the Veri-PACK inspection system will significantly ease this burden on the food industry. The system can be networked either to the customer's server or the weigh-price labeller that contain all relevant production data, and can be integrated with industry standard RFID reading systems to provide a complete traceable solution for food packing lines.