The direct marketing of agricultural products is experiencing a strong upturn. Dairy products,
in particular, are becoming increasingly popular as more and more consumers are paying closer attention to sustainability, quality and regionality. This is a real opportunity for local dairies and cooperatives to position themselves in the market and to serve the growing need for proximity between producers and consumers.
The Puracenter dairy in the Swiss town of Lenzerheide perfectly captures the spirit of the times – and demonstrates how successful direct marketing can be. Some 90% of the milk delivered is certified organic, and a large share of the milk comes from local farmers living within no more than five kilometres of the dairy.
The dairy farmers of the Swiss Vaz/Obervaz region founded the Milk Producers’ Cooperative (DE = Milchproduzentengenossenschaft or MPG) back in the 1920s. In 1996, the cooperative took over a grocery store and began processing the regional milk itself. In the same year, MPG founded Puracenter and entered into a partnership with Spar Handels AG. This collaboration made it possible to maintain and expand small shops under Puracenter’s management and offer local products in the ‘Spar supermarket’. Moreover, the purchase of the manufactured dairy products was guaranteed.
In 1996, the Puracenter dairy produced its first pasteurised milk. In the following years, the dairy’s turnover and production capacities doubled. In 2011, a new dairy plant and an administrative building were opened. Today, Puracenter produces not only pasteurised milk but also high quality cheese specialities, yoghurts, butter and cheese fondues – always under the ‘regionality and quality’ maxim.
A willingness to market directly and the interaction between farmers, dairies, retailers and consumers are decisive for success. Nonetheless, small businesses face similar challenges to large companies: strict hygiene regulations, packaging and coding all have to be adhered to.
Carlo Wasescha, deputy managing director of Puracenter, highlighted: ‘Although we are a small company, our product diversity calls for a large number of technical processes. And the coding and marking of our products plays a key role. In this area, we have been partnering very successfully with Leibinger for several years. We started with a printer for coding and dating our milk packaging. Later, we added further printing solutions for other dairy products.’
The company’s industrial printers are ideally suited to meet the specific requirements of both small and large dairies. The printers work reliably in damp production environments as well as with frequent, intensive cleaning cycles – without experiencing any issues. Depending on the model, the printers are equipped with protection classes IP54, IP56 and IP66, and are built to withstand harsh production conditions.
Puracenter uses for its product marking both smaller printing solutions such as the Jet2 Neo for the semi-automatic filling of yoghurt pots, as well as the IQjet, for fully automatic filling of milk cartons, made from 100% renewable raw materials. A special food ink is used in both printers. This meets the requirements of the EU and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for printing on food packaging.
For Puracenter, print speed was not a critical factor. For dairy bottling plants with higher demands, Leibinger offers the Jet Rapid, a high speed printer that reaches up to 806 metres per minute.
A further advantage of these printers is their outstanding availability. Even after long breaks or during seasonal use, they print immediately in the usual quality – made possible by the specially engineered, fully automatic nozzle sealing technology, also known as Sealtronic technology, which is built into all Leibinger printers. In the case of the new IQjet printer, the cutting edge nozzle sealing system has been further enhanced with smart ink management, known as IQprint technology
Chris Altthaler, production manager at Puracenter, said: ‘We never run into any problems when production begins. Everything works immediately and the print quality is always consistently high. Customer service is very responsive and very accommodating if questions arise. I was especially impressed by how smoothy our new IQjet printer runs – it performs flawlessly. To make adjustments, I simply insert a USB stick, send the data by e-mail to the support team at Leibinger and it quickly sends me the evaluations. The purchase process was also straightforward. The advice we were given was excellent and the products are described superbly. By the time we made our decision, we knew we had selected the right printers to meet our specific needs. Overall, we are extremely impressed with the seamless interaction of service and technology – which is why we will be choosing Leibinger again and again.’
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