Beverage Industry Marking & Coding Solutions

From jugs of milk to limited-production whiskey bottles, the global beverage market is as diverse as it is lucrative.

Year after year, global beverage giants like Nestle and Anheuser-Busch generate billions of dollars by producing millions of drinks for consumers around the world. On the other end of the beverage industry spectrum, smaller-scale businesses, such as craft breweries, fulfill their own market niche by producing specialty products for local customers.

Of course, regardless of whether you’re running a billion-dollar brewery or a local kombucha outfit, you won’t be able to sell your products in any store if you don’t comply with modern product coding requirements.

At InkJet, Inc., we have been developing beverage industry marking and coding solutions for over 30 years. Between our diverse marking hardware and vast portfolio of specialty ink formulas, we can provide you with a product-marking solution custom-designed to meet your personal operating needs.

Custom Beverage Industry Marking & Coding Solutions Built To Meet Modern Standards

To guarantee product freshness, aid the retail process, and keep consumers from consuming expired goods, beverage producers of all sectors are required to mark their products with essential information such as expiration dates and lot codes. If these codes are improperly applied—or absent altogether—one can expect:

• Product recalls
• Fines
• Termination of distribution agreement (in extreme cases)

While these issues are serious, they are thankfully easy to avoid if you have the right printing solution to meet your marketing needs.

By working with a marking/coding expert like InkJet, Inc., you can find a marking system that is able to:

• Apply lot codes, expiration dates, and other required codes on all of your products
• Fit well into any existing line setup that you may have
• Resist common environmental issues that threaten to reduce code quality

The DuraCode Continuous Inkjet Printer: Capable of uninterrupted high-speed coding for up to 24 hours a day, the DuraCode CIJ is a great choice for industrial beverage packaging facilities. Built with an IP55 outer structure and able to operate in temperatures ranging from 41-113° F, DuraCode printers are built to resist environmental hazards to deliver quality coding results day in and day out.

The Anser U2 Pro-S Thermal Inkjet Printer: Compact and cost-effective, the Anser U2 Pro-S is a great hardware choice for smaller-scale companies that don’t require the industrial marking speeds offered by CIJ printers. Although the Pro-S only weighs a few pounds, it can still create required product markings at speeds up to 120 m/min and machine-scannable codes at 600 x 300 DPI on all popular beverage packaging substrates, including plastic, glass, metal, and Tetra-Pak material.

The Anser X1 Thermal Inkjet Printer: While the Anser X1 may be a thermal inkjet printer, you wouldn’t know that from its high-speed marking capabilities. Able to print at speeds up to 300 m/min, the Anser X1 is one of the most powerful TIJ models on the market today.

Beyond industrial speed marking, the Anser X1 offers a number of other impressive features, including a max resolution of 600 x 600 DPI, a 1.97-inch print height (with stitched printheads), IP66 protection, and the ability to control two different production lines simultaneously.

FastJet F8200 Series Laser Marking System: Fast, accurate, and capable of delivering high-quality code results, laser systems are becoming increasingly popular across the beverage packaging spectrum. InkJet, Inc.’s own FastJet system offers a max marking speed of 2,000 characters per second, making it a great option for high-volume production lines.

Precision Series 72 High-Resolution Case Coder: Designed to print directly onto cardboard shipping cartons, the Precision Series 72 allows users to replace physical labels with directly applied codes, text, and images. If you’re looking to improve your secondary packaging processes, the Precision Series 72 can help you reduce physical labeling needs for higher overall efficiency.

Inks for Every Major Beverage Packaging Material

Marking hardware is just one piece of the beverage coding puzzle. If you’re using a printer to mark your bottles or cans, it’s essential to also have an ink formula that is both compatible with your packaging materials and able to withstand factors like:

• Facility conditions
• Product processing 
• Distribution and storage conditions

Fortunately, finding the perfect formula isn’t hard when you have access to InkJet Inc.’s diverse ink catalog. For over 30 years, we have been developing inks in-house, and today have formulas available for the most popular beverage packaging materials, including:

• Plastic
• Glass
• Aluminum
• Tetra-Pak/aseptic packaging materials
• Paperboard cartons

Beyond standard formulas, we also offer a variety of specialty inks that are ideal for traditionally challenged beverage packaging processes. Some of our most popular specialty inks offer the following properties:

• Heat-resistance
• Alcohol-resistance
• Moisture-resistance
• Thermochromic/color changing qualities
• Fast drying times