During its 164 year history, balancing tradition with
innovation has been a constant challenge for Joseph Dobson & Sons, one of
the country’s most successful and historic manufacturers of traditional
confectionery. So, when the company was looking to address the latest coding
and marking requirements for its range of boiled sweets, lollipops and branded
throat lozenges, it turned to Domino to help keep its boiled sweets, lollipops
and panned confectionery range up to date.
Established in Yorkshire in the 1850s, the family-owned business
has worked hard over the years to preserve its original values and traditional
sweet recipes while constantly adapting to the demands of the modern world,
including the need for greater coding and identification of its products. This
has seen the company, which is one of the largest privately-run confectioners
in the UK, invest in a range of technologies from Domino. These include four
V-Series Thermal Transfer Overlay (TTO) solutions, two G-Series i-Tech thermal
ink jet (TIJ) printers, as well as one of Domino’s best-selling A-series ink
jet coders.
“Working with Domino and its range of coding technologies
has really helped us to grow as a business,” says owner and Managing Director
Stephen Walshaw, who along with his wife Miriam, has helped to spearhead a
successful expansion of the company over the last few years.
Gaining the British Retail Consortium (BRC) global
certification for food safety and quality was a real turning point for Joseph
Dobson & Sons Ltd, giving them the scope and credibility to expand the
business. This has seen the company invest in new premises, new technologies
and automated processes to sit successfully alongside some of its traditional
sweet-making machines.
For Joseph Dobson & Sons, coding has become a key part
of their production process, which was originally being handled manually using
another brand of ink jet printer. Confides Stephen, “Using the previous system
was a very slow and messy process; if you didn’t get the tubes aligned on the
old printer, you’d end up with ink spray everywhere. We needed technology that
would fit into our new automated packing and bagging lines and most
importantly, print clear sell by and batch codes without interfering with
production output.”
The company turned to Domino, initially trialling its V120i
Thermal Transfer Overlay (TTO) printer, but soon decided to increase its
investment to three additional V220i models. The V-Series TTO printers are
installed on a series of high speed, multiform feeding and sealing lines which
print sell by dates and batch codes onto the bagged sweets.
Domino’s V-Series i-Tech Ribbon Drive offers four ribbon
save settings, including an ‘economy mode’ which facilitates a saving on ribbon
usage of up to 60%. In addition, downtime related to ribbon break is virtually
eliminated thanks to its unique ‘dancing arms’ which constantly monitors ribbon
tension.
“The V-Series printers are perfect. They can easily cope
with our high production speeds while producing extremely high quality, clearly
defined print. In addition, the economy mode on the ribbon drive enables us to
use every millimetre of film, eliminating wastage and significantly reducing
our consumables costs,” explains Stephen.
Adding to its portfolio of Domino technology, Joseph Dobson
& Sons also has two G-Series thermal ink jet printers integrated into its
Rotech friction feeders for coding onto the primary carton packaging of its
well-known brand of throat lozenges.
“The G-Series is a fantastic piece of kit; it just keeps
running and running,” enthuses Stephen. “We’ve had one of our G-Series in place
for the past four years, operating 16 hours a day five days a week and to date,
we have had zero maintenance issues. What’s more the quality and flexibility of
the print and capability to add extra graphics and 2D bar and QR codes will
enable us to adjust to any additional coding requirements should we need to in
the future.”
The company has also replaced its old ink jet printer with
Domino’s world leading A-Series ink jet solution to work with its hand packed
sweets. “It’s a far cry from the unreliable, messy product it replaced and my
staff love it. It’s easy to use, clean, efficient, and starts up every time.”
Says Stephen, “Maintaining and indeed successfully expanding
a business that is nearly 200 years old isn’t always easy. But when you can
work with a supplier like Domino that not only delivers in terms of the
reliability and efficiency of its technology as well as the excellent onsite
support to oversee and guide us through installation, it certainly helps.”
“The Domino technology has surpassed all our expectations
and has without doubt helped us as a business to achieve our goals.”
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