Best before printer (use by date, expiration date)

Economical best before (use by date, expiration date) printer for trade and industry

Best before date labellers have been around almost as long as modern retail. The need for the development of automated possibilities to quickly and flexibly apply information such as prices or best-before dates (BBD) to products or outer packaging became apparent early on. Today, however, best-before labellers are almost only found in small retail outlets. All large supermarkets and retailers have now switched to purely electronic processes. A best-before date labeller classically works with small adhesive labels. For price or best-before date labelling, the user presses a button on a handle attached to the device and simultaneously rolls over the area on the item to be marked. The set information on the best-before date or price is printed or stamped on the adhesive labels on a roll, and the unrolling causes the label to detach from the roll. This method is quick and easy, can be used flexibly and is often very economical due to the relatively inexpensive devices.

In modern day-to-day business, however, there is often much more that needs to be labelled and marked. Incoming goods have to be labelled, outgoing goods have to be provided with shipping information and so on. Here, the tried-and-tested best-before labellers are of little help - they can only use a very limited range of characters and the font sizes are usually fixed. Not to mention modern labelling techniques such as barcodes or QR codes. Modern labelling systems based on TIJ (thermal inkjet) can be a real alternative as best-before printers.

Hand printers as best-before marking systems

Today, hand printers are considered a modern option for labelling and marking - with economical acquisition and operating costs. Hand printers are not dependent on existing production lines, but can be easily used everywhere. Since they allow the creation of almost any print templates, they can print small items as well as very large ones. As best-before date labellers, they are well suited for small to medium-sized batches and, of course, especially for the external labelling of packaging, foils or pallets. The ready-to-sell display packaging common in retail today can be labelled with them just as easily as the individual items themselves. Due to the contactless printing, even irregular and rough surfaces (e.g. wooden fruit crates) can be marked.

Hand printers as best-fore marking systems have the advantage of a high availability of special inks with special properties and colours. This means that almost any material can be printed on. The amount of available print content also leaves little to be desired. In addition to text, numbers, prices, dates and consecutive numbers (e.g. batch numbers and serial numbers), barcodes and QR codes can also be printed. Even monochrome graphics such as logos or data matrix codes can be output.

A handheld printer is the fast and economical MHD labeller alternative - especially for the smallest businesses.

NasaJet^® NJ-1000 und NJ-2000 best-before marking

In contrast to retailers, producers rarely use best-before dates with labels. Direct printing has been preferred here for a long time. Our NasaJet® models NJ-1000 and NJ-2000 are therefore suitable for quick and easy integration into existing production lines. The systems consist of a separate control unit with touch-sensitive display, as well as the actual printing unit. The "print unit", however, does not consist of a print head and a separate printer cartridge - as is usual in the home sector - but uses a proven, combined technology from Hewlett Packard. Cartridge and print head are combined in a single housing.

With the proven TIJ principle, which is also used in our hand printers, almost any material and surface can be printed. In addition to their function as best-before printers, the NasaJet® models can also perform many other labelling tasks at the same time. Printing of text, serial numbers, QR codes and simple graphics is possible.

Do you have any questions about our NasaJet® MHD labellers? Just give us a call.

Do you have any questions about our NasaJet® MHD labellers? Just give us a call.