Label Printer

Salle Orchards is printing about 6,000 multicolor labels a year for our bags of dried fruit, raw nuts and candied nuts. We’ve been buying them in batches of about 1000 – divided into around 200 each of pears, nectarines, apples, peaches and nuts. The cost of getting them through our local print shop is about 14 cents per label. If you factor in the gas money that goes into making runs to the print shop, the price is much higher. We would love to have our own full-color printer in-house but that’s just not affordable to us right now. Color label printers tend to be slow and expensive, not to mention that replacing the color cartridges can get very expensive.

But we settled on a solution that we think will work great – a black ink label printer that prints on rolls of full-color generic labels with our farm name and logo. They full color labels are printed by an outside supplier using 4-color process in either gloss or semi-gloss, and they cost roughly 5 cents each based on a printing run of 10,000. You’ll be assessed a one-time “plate charge” that boosts the cost of your first run of labels. If you have an unusually shaped label, you would also have to pay for a one-time die cut to be made, which I’m guessing is around $500.

These pre-printed color labels come on a roll and they can be fed into a black ink label printer so we can add the “variable information” for each specific product. That may include product name, weight and ingredients. It could also include bar codes and nutrition labels, if you’re selling retail. Also, many label machines can be hooked up to a scale at the Point of Sale, and the variable information can include weight, price per pound and product cost like the kind of label that comes on your purchase of at your supermarket's deli department .

Making the purchasing decision for the label printer is actually very difficult. Naturally, you’ll want your labels to have a professional, high quality look. It’s important to invest in the right printer for your exact application. The top brands include Datamax, Zebra, Sato and Intermec. You have to be careful with salesmen, because they may not be very knowledgeable about some of the products they’re representing, and they may not be able to clearly explain the features and differences for all the brands and models.

Here are some of our considerations:

• ·        Direct thermal printer versus thermal transfer printer. (They sound similar, but there’s a very important difference. Labels printed with direct thermal have a chemical coating that is susceptible to light and heat. The paper stock is a little more expensive and has to be special ordered. As it ages, the label starts to brown, so you will not be able to keep it around for more than a year. Since Salle Orchards sells at outdoor farmers’ markets, we needed to go with the thermal transfer process, which uses a ribbon and heat to make the ink stick to the label. It lasts longer in direct sunlight and withstands heat better. Some, but not all, printers can do both types of printing, so be sure you know how the ink gets on the label.
• ·        Label Printer software: Geesh, this is confusing too. Popular brands include Labelview Basic ($249), Label View ($400), Label Matrix and Bartender, among others.
• ·        Dots per inch, or dpi. The higher the quality the printer, the more dpi you’ll get out of it. And the more expensive it will be.
• ·        Buying a new versus a much discounted refurbished printer. The refurbished ones may be returns, floor samples, reconditioned trade-ins, etc. Generally, the price is lower, but the guarantee is for a much shorter period of time than a new unit.
• ·        The print head. It’s the most important part of the label printer, and it needs regular maintenance. Basically, it needs to be wiped clean occasionally, so make sure it’s easy to reach.
• ·        Printer ports to connect to your computer. For example, the Datamax I-4208, one of the leading printers, comes with a parallel, serial and ethernet port.
• ·        Oh, and cost.