Labels – Page 3 – Affiliated Packaging

Cannabis Label Solutions

On January 31^st and February 1^st, 2017, we exhibited at the Seed To Sale Show (http://www.seedtosaleshow.com/denver-2017/) in Denver, CO; the national show focused on innovative best practices, science, and cutting edge technology in cultivation, processing, and sales strategies for the cannabis market. Over 2,000 people attended; and many came to our booth.

Beatriz Molina of Color Label Solutions at the Seed to Sale Show

During this event, we demonstrated several technologies, some of which are new, that fit the cannabis market. I’d like to recap the technologies we showed.

During the show, the C7500G received the most interest; especially the great-looking labels we were printing on gloss poly.

Gloss Poly Label Produced By A C7500G

For manufacturers of products, the C7500 produces the great looking labels needed for the cannabis industry. Brands are very important; pushing manufacturers to use premium looking labels. As regulators require the identification of items in the cannabis industry, the C7500 allows the printing of labels with variable data, simplifying the production process. Look at the label with variable data on the left side produced by one of our customers in the Denver area:

C7500G Color Label with Variable Data

This label looks beautiful; in large part by the designer. The C7500 color label printer is quickly becoming the standard label printer for the cannabis industry.

In addition to the C7500, we showed, for the first time, the ClariSafe Dispensing Color Label Printer.

ClariSafe Dispensary Printer

With it’s very small footprint and very affordable price, the ClariSafe label printer is perfect for prescription labels at checkout. This printer produces labels up to 2.25” wide with sufficient print quality, one-at-a-time, with text, barcodes and color images like the THC icon:

At $899.90, the ClariSafe Label printer is affordable; especially given it comes with BarTender Basic for designing and printing labels. Consider adding the ClariSafe Color Label Printer in your dispensary; your budtenders will love it.

In addition to the new ClariSafe printer, we showed the C831 printing pot stakes and plant wraps in color and on demand.

C831 Color Pot Stakes and Plant Wraps

Now you can use color in your growing operations to identify strains or communicate dates, for example.

Color Pot Stakes

Plus, they stakes and wraps are very durable, lasting throughout the life cycle of the plants.

Color Plant Wrap

Color can become a great new tool for your growing operation.

Also, we showed the MPack vial; the first new pharmacy vial since the 50’s.

MPack Child Resistant/Tamper Evident Packaging

This packaging is perfect for edible products, where child-resistant and tamper-evident packaging is required. The clips on the sides of the MPack are relatively easy for adults to open. And with the addition of our label, the MPack becomes tamper evident. If you’re looking for child resistant, tamper-evident packaging, contact us to discuss.

Finally, we started using our new URL just prior to the show: www.cannabislabel.solutions. Check out our new page.

The Seed To Sale Show was a valuable experience for us. If you could not attend this tradeshow but see something of interest, contact us to discuss how these tools will fit into your operation.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com

Fast, Colorful, RFID

FlexStr8, Inc. (www.flexstr8.com) develops, manufactures, and markets integrated smart label systems, smart labels, encoders, and NFC software. Through continued research, new product development, and innovative manufacturing, they provide high quality cost effective technical solutions for our worldwide customers.

In 2015, I wrote about Flexstr8’s NFC encoder working with the C3500: http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/07/nfc-in-color.html

Since this last post, FlexStr8 has launched a thermal transfer NFC encoder/label printer with the Zebra GC420T: http://www.flexstr8.us/bwencoder/

And a temperature logger: http://www.flexstr8.us/smarttemp/. This temperature logger is very “cool”!

Now I’m excited to tell you about a new product; that encodes UHF RFID labels at 11” per second. Watch the C7500 encode and print color labels here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnYbLU649s

According to Ralph Roessler, President of Flexstr8, says “Initially, developing a system to encode and print color labels using the C7500 was not on our development path. But a company approached us to develop a solution for them using UHF RFID tags, which could be printed in color and on-demand. After some thought, we decided to move forward; and quickly. We’re very proud of our solution.”

C7500 Encoding RFID Tags

Ralph continues, “As the printer runs at 11” per second, we needed a system not only to encode and print at that speed; but also identify the bad RFID tags without stopping the printer. By adding a reader antenna near the unwind station and another antenna after the print head, we could read, encode, print and skip a label if required due to a bad tag. Bad tags do happen; probably around 1% of the time. We needed to be able to identify the any tags that should not to use for tracking.”

According to Eric Casavant, FlexStra8 Product Engineer, “we designed this system to be incredibly easy to use. The system snaps onto the 7500 in a few seconds; then upgrades the device into a print on-demand color RFID printer.”

C7500 Pop-In RFID Encoder

With my history with UHF RFID labels, I see an opportunity for the use of these tags/labels in apparel. RFID in apparel has grown significantly in size over the last few years. According to this article, nearly 4 billion RFID tags were used in apparel in 2015: http://www.supplychainbrain.com/content/latest-content/single-article/article/retail-apparel-industry-taps-rfid-for-inventory-accuracy/. A perfect application for the C7500 and RFID tags/labels.

After the initial work with the C7500, Flexstr8 has found two other interesting applications. Ralph says, “GHS labels for time and temperature sensitive chemicals is a natural RFID market; especially with the requirement to print colored pictograms. RFID helps users track and locate time and/or temperature sensitive compounds easily and quickly.”

Ralph continues, “We also see a new market for identifying individual cannabis plants. With our RFID encoded tags, growers can track individual plants; and especially cloned plants. With RFID, you can identify and track individual plants; which is required in certain states. Color coding and potential marketing benefits is important with the capability to print in color on tags and labels.”

If you see a market for this fascinating new technology, please share with me your thoughts. If you have a need to track items quickly and easily using on-demand color labels, contact me to discuss this new solution from FlexStr8.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com

MIL-SPEC Color Labels

I am pleased to announce that Color Label Solutions now offers print on-demand color labels that meet MIL-PRF-61002B and MIL-STD-129R.

Inkjet Coated, Color, MIL-SPEC Compliance Letter

Inkjet Coated, Color, MIL-SPEC Compliance Labels

If you don’t know these specifications, MIL-PRF-61002B comes from the Department of Defense and covers the requirements for pressure-sensitive adhesive labels that meet or exceed the end user’s necessary performance criteria for use in the implementation of bar code marking/reading operations. Obtain this MIL-SPEC here: http://metalphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/03/MIL-PRF-61002B.pdf

MIL-STD 12S9R comes from the DOD as well; and provides the minimum requirements for uniform military marking for shipment and storage. Obtain this MIL-SPEC here: https://vsc.gsa.gov/administration/files/MIL-STD-129R.pdf

Up until now, most companies were required to use thermal transfer printers to comply with these standards involved with shipping products to the DOD. In fact, you’ll find direct mention of this printing technology in both documents.

However, one of our customers came to us wanting to switch from thermal transfer (specifically the Zebra 170Xi4 6” wide and 220Xi4) to inkjet printed labels. He wanted to make this switch after using the C831 printers to produce GHS labels.

C831 Label Printer

We have a lot of posts on using the C831 printer to produce GHS labels:

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/09/apprehension-good-design.html Ranger Distribution

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/01/ghs-needs-erin.html Engineered Lubricants

http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2015/01/dyeing-for-ghs.html Pylam Products

According to our customer, four reasons make the C831 printer a better option than wide thermal transfer printers for printing DOD labels. First, printed labels are evaluated by the Department of Defense (DOD) to insure they meet the standards. Ribbon wrinkle, which happens when the thermal transfer printer ribbon does not feed correctly, happens occasionally producing a barcode with streaks. These streaks may make the barcodes not readable. When this occurs, the DOD may reject the shipment, costing suppliers to the DOD a great deal of money. With the higher print resolution (760 x 360 versus 203 or 300 dpi for thermal transfer printers), the C831 printer eliminates the risk of ribbon wrinkle.

Second, changing ribbons can be a pain with thermal transfer printers. According to our customer, their operators hate to change ribbons. Watch the process to change ribbons in a Zebra 170Xi4:

https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support-downloads/printers/industrial/170xi4.html

Comparably, changing ink cartridges takes just seconds.

Third, ink costs less than ribbons; especially resin ribbons. Here is a post from some time ago detailing the cost differences. http://colorlabelsondemand.blogspot.com/2013/12/trust-me.html

In our customer’s situation, the large inkjet labels are less expensive as well.

Fourth, the labels printed with a C831 just look better than those printed on a standard thermal transfer printer. Although the DOD doesn’t purchase based on label design and quality, our customer believes the color labels from the C831 represent a higher quality image of the product and company; reinforcing positively the DOD’s purchase decision. Adding color logos, images, color coding and text can differentiate your company from other vendors.

If you supply the DOD, consider moving to print on-demand color labels. We’ll support your move to this new, better looking, easier to use, and less expensive option.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com

Fun With Labels

After selling, installing and supporting thousands of label printers, I say 95+% of them are utilized in manufacturing/producing a product label. So this post is different; it’s about using label printers to produce a handmade, unique commemorative item – Or what I call, “Fun with Labels!”

Recently, our neighbor, Carrie, asked if I would produce labels for her project. And of course I said yes; but wanted to know more about her plans.

It seems she wanted to produce something special for her book club. According to Carrie, “our book club has been together for more than 8 years. And this year, I just happened to be hosting our December meeting. Given it was the end of the year, I wanted to make something special for our club that commemorated the books we’d read. I checked Pinterest; and found only different bookmark ideas. Given that many of our club members use e-readers, bookmarks seemed out-of-date. So, I decided to make an ornament with book cover images of the books we read January thru December.”

To start the project, Carrie cut a block of wood into cubes using her miter saw. “For about $15, I got a nice 3’ x 2.5” piece of wood that enabled me to cut out 12 cubes. After cutting the wood, she sanded the wood using sandpaper to smooth out the edges.

Once the blocks were finished, Carrie went online to get the images of the books. Initially, she tried to print the images on her desktop printer; but was unhappy with the results. Given she knew I was in the label business, she asked me to print labels for her.

After listening to her requirements, I suggested she create a 4” x 8” PDF containing the highest resolution book cover page images she could find. I suggested 4” x 8” size as I had this size available in a glossy paper label making it easy to print.

4″ x 8″ PDF With Images

It would have been easier if we would have created individual smaller labels printing one at a time; but you would need to have the correct sized images and labels to make this work correctly.

I printed 12 labels, each containing the set of images representing each of the books read during the year.

4″ x 8″ Gloss Paper Label

Carrie then cut the individual image labels and applied them to the blocks including a special message on the bottom.

Then, she coated the block with an acrylic sealer to protect and give it a shine.

Finally, she drilled a small hole in the top, added gorilla glue in the hole, and forced the knot on the string holding the loop/bow into the hole. And Voila, Carrie has produced a beautiful holiday ornament for her club!

Hand Made Commemorative Using Labels

According to Carrie, “I got great feedback from our book club members. In fact, my girlfriend said she wanted one every year! I think the size of the block and book images were just perfect; not too big or small.”

Hand Made Commemorative Using Labels

After completing the project, Carrie says, “Pictures would be a good idea as well; your kids, grandchildren, etc. to commemorate any event. The labels with the images made it easy to do!”

Carrie is crafty and creative; and a great neighbor. And using Carrie’s idea, you can turn the labels printers in your plant or office into your own personal handy-craft tool; a “Fun with Labels” opportunity.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com