Applying Product Data On Edible Substrates

Colour-change specialist, Sherwood Technology's patented Datalase Edible is safely imaging information on to some of the more unlikely printing substrates imaginable.

Colour-change specialist, Sherwood Technology's patented Datalase Edible is safely imaging information on to some of the more unlikely printing substrates imaginable.

The information is being applied to the coated surface of hard and soft skinned fruit, vegetables and other edible products.

Datalase Edible is applied to the fruit surface and then activated by a very low power CO2 laser to produce a high contrast image and has significant benefits over existing fruit marking methods, said Sherwood.

The product is a colour changing foodstuff that allows a low power laser beam to write information such as date of picking, country of origin, best before date and product look-up codes directly on to the surface coating of the fruit.

That removes the need to apply labels to the fruit, which have a tendency to fall off, harbour bacterial growth and cause a choking hazard if consumed.

Datalase Edible is claimed to have a number of advantages over other fruit marking technology.

Primarily it does not interfere with the surface of the fruit.

The image is formed in the edible coating rather than using lasers to burn or 'tattoo' images in to the skin.

Studies indicate that ablating data on to fruit can result in the protective skin being vaporised resulting in rapid deterioration in the freshness of the product.

Additionally, for light coloured non-edible citrus fruits, such as lemons, insufficient contrast is achieved with ablation, requiring companies to add an additional food dye to make the images readable.

The US and European patented laser responsive foodstuff formulation can be applied to the surface of the fruit via a spray coating process.

The chemistry is then activated by a low power CO2 scribing laser to produce graphics on the surface coating of the fruit that have great image quality and are produced using 100% edible components said Sherwood.

Andrew Jackson, the applications marketing manager of Sherwood Technology, said: "Datalase Edible not only offers a solution for marking data directly on to produce but it also overcomes a number of other problems such as maintenance and production line down-time, in addition to issues associated with maintaining printing apparatus and replacing consumables.

This is probably why the leading US citrus producer is in the advanced stages of adopting the technology following successful trials.".

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