Simply African Food Limited, established in 2002 is a rapidly growing company selling authentic South African food across the UK. Their mouth-watering range of Biltong has seen a ten-fold increase in productivity due to demand and the company found that their traditional coding and marking methods were inadequate.
“The manual print system we had in place simply would not have coped with the increase in demands once our new Vertical Form Fill Seal machine was in place,” said Neil Dodson, managing director of Simply African, “Printing on demand is much more cost effective.”
Intamac helped Simply African with their changing production needs. They recommended that an .UNO Plus printing solution from inc.jet should be integrated into their packaging line, allowing them to print Best Before dates, batch codes and scannable barcodes with ease.
“Prior to investing in inc.jet’s print technology they had a very simple label printer, using pre-formulated labels and printing them as and when required. These were then manually stuck onto the packaging,” said Tom Poston, sales executive.
For Dodson it has been a learning curve, “The whole system was completely new to me, but I trusted the team when they recommended the inc.jet system to me and when I saw it demonstrated I could see immediately how it would work on our factory floor.”
Furthermore, they have been able to save additional costs by printing information on weight together with the date, batch and barcode. This means savings in the number of different size films Simply African need to purchase.
Dodson states, “This is a much more cost-effective option compared to the labels and the quality of the print is excellent, it doesn’t rub off and we have had excellent feedback from our customers.”
The inks, that he also purchases from Intamac, are a fifth of the price of his previous inks and last much longer. Dodson sums up his experience perfectly. “The printing system is meeting our needs 100% and we are sure that we can use it more than we are already. If we purchase any more machinery we would definitely have another inc.jet system to go with it.”
