Installed at the biscuit manufacturer’s plant in West Yorkshire, the cost effective TJ500 is said to have been chosen for its clean operation, low maintenance, minimal operator involvement and consistent print quality.
Allen Coding’s TJ500 thermal jet printers are being used by Fox’s Biscuits to apply a variety of date formats, such as self-calculating time Julian and calendar date codes, on to both outer cases and primary product cartons. The units, which are primarily fitted to Endoline case sealers in this instance, are operating at speeds up to 20 ppm (packs per minute) on the case code application and 120 ppm on the primary packs.
Stephen Hannan, print manager at Fox’s Biscuits said: “Our previous case coders were getting old and costly to run, as well as becoming very messy due to ink spillage. We chose Allen as it is a long established business offering reliable support and service, whilst the TJ500 thermal jet printers provided the high levels of cleanliness and hygiene required by food manufacturers.
“Every time we replace an ink cartridge a new print head is fitted which helps us maintain optimum print quality. The ability to automatically update date fields with minimal operator input once the format has been designed and loaded was a big plus as it ensures date integrity by eliminating the risk of the wrong information being inputted.”
Allen Coding installed the first TJ500 printer but the following 13 systems were fitted by Fox’s Biscuits’ engineers after they received training from the Hertfordshire-based company.
“The overall service from Allen Coding, their sales engineer and help desk has been good and we would happily recommend both the company and the TJ500 printer to other food companies,” Stephen concludes.
Allen Coding’s TJ500 thermal jet printer features an ink cartridge which offers high quality 300dpi vertical and horizontal print resolution on both porous and non-porous substrates. Self-contained, with speed and product detection adjusted using internal sensors, or expandable with the optional extras hub, the TJ500 is capable of printing up to five lines of text.
