Delicate food with careful choice of labels

Butcher shop for gourmets with own production

The butcher's shop Ziegler is well known for more than 111 years as the best address in Zurich for gourmets. Already since 1899, many generations of the owner family have attached great importance to quality and enjoyment. Around 99 years later, the traditional company was relaunched in 1998 as "Ziegler delikat essen AG". The conversion and expansion of the specialist store in Oerlikon and in 2008 the construction of the new modern production plant in Oberglatt underpinned the company's reputation. Today, around 50 employees are committed to Ziegler delikat essen AG.

Anchored in the Zurich region

The slaughter cattle come mainly from the Zurich region and are transported directly to the company's own production plant. Here, a first-class infrastructure enables rapid processing under strict hygiene regulations. State-of-the-art cooling systems ensure maximum product freshness and contribute to environmental protection with energy-efficient heat recovery and brine cooling systems.

Careful labeling

The fresh, chilled products must be labeled efficiently and quickly. The traditional label printing company Selfix AG from Otelfingen in Canton Zurich supplies the food labels according to specifications and also the highest quality requirements. It was important to the butchery to print its own charcuterie articles and sauces (lid and belly labels) with a view to maximum flexibility.

The initial situation

ZieglerMetzg decided on an EPSON C6000Ae color label printer. This color label printer prints with pigment ink and has an impressive resolution of 1200x1200 pixels, a print width of 203.2mm, a print speed of 100mm/s as well as a LAN connection for integration into the network, an integrated label dispenser and a cutter. For label printing in many varieties with different shelf lives, ZieglerMetzg chose NiceLabel PowerForms. The easy-to-use label designer included with the software allows the company to quickly create even complex labels, including expiration date calculations. Another advantage is that the NiceLabel PowerForms label printing interface allows quick creation of intuitive label printing interfaces with label preview. This means that several hundred or thousand different label layouts can be easily managed and printed by untrained personnel at the push of a button and without much training. Especially in hectic times, such investments pay off.

Label requirements

Labeling refrigerated food inevitably leads to condensation on the labels, which is why only a waterproof PP inkjet label came into consideration. For this purpose, Selfix chose a 90my white inkjet PP film with acrylic gumming (= food-safe) with good initial and final adhesion for sticking to moist and cool surfaces. For printing the labels ZieglerMetzg uses EPSON C6000Ae color label printer. This label printer prints with pigment ink. In contrast to dye ink, the pigments in pigment ink protect the print from external influences such as friction and moisture, so that the labels shine brightly throughout their entire life cycle, including the consumer period at the customer, and neither fade nor smudge.

How the Selfix overcomes the challenge of printing round and non-rectangular labels

The EPSON C6000Ae has an adjustable label detection sensor. In order for the print to fit when changing labels from round sauce to banana-shaped belly labels, the sensor would have to be precisely adjusted each time. This would inevitably result in wasted time and waste labels. A quick and easy label change without waste can be made possible if the labels have so-called "black marks", i.e. a pre-printed control mark, on the back of the label. In the case of ZieglerMetzg, we printed two such "blackmarks" to turn the respective label contours (round, banana shape) into a "quasi-rectangle" so that the printer can scan using the transmitted light sensor without having to adjust the sensor in each case. This saves a lot of time and money.

The challenge of rotated fonts

The printing of angled fonts on conical containers posed a minor challenge. If the text is printed at an angle of 0°, the text would appear angled or skewed on the label. Text can be rotated in NiceLabel in 1° increments (+ / -), graphics as well. So it was obvious to print the texts at a certain angle. Since NiceLabel also allows graphics for serial printing, the text graphics can be integrated into the corresponding labels via database. "Last but not least" we inserted a QR code with link to zieglermetzg.ch for menu and preparation suggestions. "An all-round good fit," says Roland Wagner, Head of Logistics/Infrastructure, praising the high quality of the solution and the "know-how" of Selfix, "because without this expertise we would not have been able to implement this solution."

The result is impressive

Owner, Mr. Jürg Baumgartner, is enthusiastic: "The sauce-belly label of the Ziegler butchery can be printed so versatile and flexible as well as accurate, i.e. that the text on the label appears straight. Because our guests appreciate our homemade specialties and enjoy the beautifully designed and packaged products."