Thirsty for traceability...

Solo Cup Europe provides restaurants, consumers and manufacturers with single-use packaging solutions, in particular, hot and cold drink cups and lids. Their factory (based in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire), manufactures and supplies these cups to some major International customers such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee.

Historically Solo Cup Europe tracked their products by coding onto the outer case boxes, but soon realised this wasn't reliable enough as it's often the first thing to be destroyed upon delivery. They approached Videojet after realising a more precise traceability process was needed, so Videojet took the challenge of providing a better solution.

The solution was to code onto each individual cup. The challenge was that each of solo's cup manufacturing machines produces a rapid 240 cups per minute. We suggested our Ultra High Speed small character inkjet printers to be installed on each machine. The complex machinery required a lot of trial and error sessions during installation. Alastair Reed, QA Manager at Solo, said:

“The installation was stressful at times but we worked through it together and succeeded in the end…The result of a cup by cup traceability was something that we just didn't have before.”

Solo Cup Europe were the first manufacturers in their field to code in this way, giving them a leading edge against competitors in the industry. They can determine which machine produced the cup, by whom, and when, saving them both time and money. When asked what this solution has brought to Solo's customers, Alastair said:

“It gives our customers a confidence in us they didn't have before.”

Through our successful installation and strong working relationship with the customer, Videojet will be top of Solo's list to help with future challenges.

www.solocupeurope.co.uk