Located in Maine, Labeling Solutions has expertise serving seafood processors across the US through a range of seafood labeling products. According to Donald Tomkinson, President of Labeling Solutions, “We had an opportunity in the seafood industry with a customer who needed to classify fresh-caught inventory on a daily basis, quickly and accurately replacing tedious manual counting. Based on these requirements, we started looking for a color printer that could produce on-demand, color-code tags with 2D barcodes and text. Most importantly, we had to find printable, durable tags that could withstand 3 or more weeks in salt water.

Based on this requirement, Donald and his team at Labeling Solutions developed a solution that met all of these requirements. Labeling Solutions utilized an Epson TM-C3400 label printer, which uses Durabrite inks that are ideal for seafood labeling.

In choosing a durable tag, Labeling Solutions selected a 8 mil poly tag to meet the rigorous requirements of this seafood packaging application. These tags are certified by the BS5609 certification process, making this tag not only durable, but also enables these seafood labeling tags to be printed at a very high level of quality.

Labeling Solutions developed a comprehensive solution comprised of several “best of breed” components to create the ultimate seafood labeling solution:

• Epson color printer
• Bar Tender™ label software
• Durable color tags
• Handheld Mobile PC with Windows Mobile and 2D scanner
• Notebook PC
• Physical Inventory Counting Software

The scanning handheld mobile PC scans and stores inventory levels as well as provide output for business application to reconcile. To design the tag formats, Labeling Solutions uses BarTender™ software (According to Donald, “I quickly moved to BarTender™ when I came into this business 7 years ago. With the basic label and database capabilities combined now with the extended integration capabilities of modules such as Commander™, I prefer this market leading labeling software.”

With the printer, tags and application completed, Labeling Solutions completed their first deployment. Donald says, “For the first print job, we printed 6,000 tags with 32 different classifications, and have expanded to another 2,000 tags as the solution has been deployed. Each tag has a 2D barcode, text, and color code to make it easier for the workers to identify quickly the category of seafood. It was a “layup” to use durable color tags as a part of this solution. Moving to on-demand color labels and tags will improve all types of work processes; including classifying, fresh-caught inventory. Contact Labeling Solutions today to discuss how color can be added to your business.