Written by Andy Neat, Senior Product Manager- Marking & Identification and Toolfox

First of all I hope you and your families are all safe and well, hopefully soon we’ll be back to normality which would be fine timing as Netflix has almost been exhausted in our house! Although the Joe Exotic and Carol Baskin’s feud did make for gripping television!

So today I’m going to talk about Food & Beverage identification and, what’s more, if this blog isn’t enough to wet your industrial marking appetite then at 3pm today you can see our latest Marking Monday video-cast which is also on… you guessed it, food & beverage identification.

So let’s crack on!

The long and short of it is that marking in this industry not only needs to do its normal job of ‘identifying’ but it has to be up to the job of withstanding harsh cleaning, have no surfaces that could harbour food and also needs be detectable if the worst should happen and it falls into your microwave Chicken Balti!

The labels need to have all the correct requirements and standards like ISEGA and EHEDG which Phoenix Contact have got covered.

So what have we got to offer?

Starting off with our Thermomark Roll and Rollmaster printers we have the EML-D label. This is a high powered adhesive equipment marking label (EML) that would need Jeff Capes to peel it off! Also, as the description subtlety says, the D stands for ‘detectable’ so these labels will show up on an X-ray machine at the end of the production line for peace of mind. Of course, this is available in a variety of sizes too.

Talking of detectable we also have the WMTB HF D which is a blue cable tie marker. Blue being the standard in the food & Beverage industry as it’s not a natural colour so should stand out like a….well like a cable tie marker in your ready-made lasagna! And again, these are also detectable for X-ray process and halogen free too!

On the subject of blue and detectable we also have the standard cable tie WT-ID HF ..X.. BU available in a range of sizes for the food & beverage industry which will, of course, also show up in x-ray scanners.

Let’s talk self-laminating! Or as Phoenix Contact call it, EML-LPR. Some of our competitors have a label where you get a self laminating sheet to apply afterwards to help protect it against harsh cleaning and any other influences that could degrade it. Well what we’ve done is apply the self laminating sheet to the back of the label to help you get it applied perfectly every time. I’ll be honest, it’s easier to actually see what I’m talking about so this is a shameless plug to check it out my videocast at 3pm later today!

Moving on we have a new label for 2021 on our standard UC cards. UC-WMTBA-D (..x..)/PP which are, again, cable tie markers but made out of a new material for Phoenix Contact, polypropylene. These are a highly flexible labels which do not soak up moisture so are therefore hard to break and are safe to be used in food and beverage applications. These are to be used on our Topmark Neo laser printer to give a permanent marking result. Ideal for harsh cleaning! Available in blue, yellow and white.

And whilst we are talking about the Topmark, we also have lots of V4A stainless steel labels available too in either equipment marking or cable marking which is again perfect for the food and beverage industry too.

All of these labels are available In a small range of sizes and are of course all covered by the relevant standards needed to supply into the food and beverage industry. For more info on our marking systems click here.

Also we have lots of offers available on most of our marking systems for May so check those out here.

That’s it for now, so if you want to see a tall guy struggling with hayfever whilst talking about these labels then I’ll look forward to seeing at our latest episode of Marking Monday at 3pm.

Thanks again for reading and let’s look forward to hugs and pubs again very soon!

For more information, contact Andy on 07786 252414 or email aneat@phoenixcontact.com