November 27th, 2009
When it comes to alcoholic beverages, Absolut Vodka is somewhat a household name amongst people over the age of eighteen (and possible some younger). Absolut is a fascinating brand, and with the embrace of popular culture working to its advantage it has presented itself to be the rockstar brand amongst clear spirits.
If you’ve ever held a bottle of Absolut in your hands, you might notice the thickness of the glass, and the fogging effect on select flavoured bottles. Absolut vodka with vanilla essence for example, has a thick foggy glass that not ever Superman himself could melt with his laser heat vision… Well, even Absolut bottles with super thick glass hides need to be marked. But how…??
When Absolut vodka consulted us, they required “absolute traceability”, forgive the pun, but it speaks the truth in a highly logical manner. The importance of traceability for Absolut was paramount for their branding. In order to maintain the prestige of their range, bottles would be marked with batch numbers in the most subtle manner possible – a marking underneath the bottle cap, and an intricate code marking just above the glass base of the bottle. Batch marking was essential to avoid counterfeiting with imitation vodka, as well as keeping track on the millions of bottles produced and exported to over 120 countries each year.
The thickness of each bottle of vodka meant that marking the bottles would prove to be inherently difficult – and when Absolut began producing fogged glass bottles, an acceptable standard of legibility was too hard to attain with their preceding technology. That’s where Markem-Imaje stepped in to save the day – we provided a Lightjet Vector coder to engrave high-definition traceability code directly on the bottle glass at a considerable speed, whilst maintaining a high level of quality. The end result? Before you lose your mind drinking the delicious translucent fluid produced by our friends at Absolut Sweden, scan the bottle for the marking – and when you find it, marvel at its intricacy like a work of art and think of the sheer power required to create a subtle, yet easily readable marking on glass that thick! Our 100W Lightjet vector lasers may not quite be able to melt through Adamantium (think mythical impenetrable metals and Wolverine from X-Men)… But we guarantee maximum legibility on any glass surface, and if you think we can’t, then we’re definitely up to the challenge.
To read more details of this case study, follow the link to our beverage traceability resources. If you require traceability solutions for your high-end products, then talk to the team at Markem-Imaje Australia.
November 9th, 2009
According to the latest Markem-Imaje global SCOPE mag, the increasing demand for confectionary consumables means an increase in the demand for traceability, coding and marking. As it stands, the confectionary industry engrosses a large market share amongst consumables with a healthy 120 billion dollar industry. If you think that this market share is massive, well, chocolate alone accounts for 50% of that market share.
What we can establish from all of this? Consumers love candy, and much like the healthcare (dental) industry is the lifeline to those who plan on giving themselves cavities through excess candy consumption, we are the lifeline to the candy manufacturers who require higher levels of safety and traceability. High consumption of confectionary products by children in particular, means that all products must be easily traceable should something go wrong. This is where we come in – if you’d like to read up some more on our traceability solutions, you can find resources on our website.
November 6th, 2009
With a growing demand for CSR initiatives from large conglomerates worldwide, it really is becoming an industry expectation for larger industrial organizations to ‘go green’. At Markem-Imaje, we’ve embraced growing concern for the environment by introducing inks that are completely solvent free, AND we’ve removed ethanol from our entire ink range with an MEK component reduction in the works as well.
Not bad, huh? With larger corporations, a lot of time and effort is invested into reformulating industrial elements to be more environmentally friendly. Financially, greener initiatives are a dearer investment, but we think the end results are well worth the money spent – especially when there is a growing demand for us to combat climate change.
If you work for a large industrial corporation, we’d love to know what it is you’re doing to make for a cleaner environment!
