Design

Dairy Crest has installed an integrated software system to improve its coding and labelling at its cheddar cheese production line.

Markem has supplied the dairy firm with its Cimjet and Cimpak label printer applicators and Inkjet 5000 printers. It has also provided tailored software to combine the new equipment with Dairy Crest’s existing printers, coders, labellers and check weighers.

The system has been integrated into the factory’s database and internal shipping system, allowing the dairy company to monitor the whole production process.

Dairy Crest’s Davidstow-based creamery produces and packs 100 tonnes of Cheddar every day and, in the case of mature Cheddar, stores it for up to 20 months. So it is essential that it can accurately code and label its product.

Neil Flood, Dairy Crest project engineer, said: “With an increased throughput on the cheese production line, the need for a reliable weighing and labelling system was paramount. By integrating our coding and labelling systems with Markem’s software, we can now track information at any time during the process – such as which pallet a block of cheese belongs to, or how heavy it is. We can also trace back any pallet over 18 months to the day and time it was produced.”

In the first stage of the process, labels are applied onto the shrink-wrapped cheese. A scanner then verifies the label has been applied with the correct content.

The cheese is then cased and labelled with a 100 per cent readable bar code. In the final part of the process, a scanner identifies the number and weight of cheese and collates a pallet in conjunction with a robot palletiser. Full pallets are then labelled.