Once the manufacturing process ends and the product is prepared for distribution, printing batch number or lot number, a component of product traceability, is one of the ways for manufacturers to exercise control in case the product is subjected to certain manufacturing issues such as contamination or failure of the product quality of a batch.
Various regulatory boards such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) have instituted regulations and guidelines directing food manufacturers to include general safety and traceability information to ensure that the product is safe and to facilitate organized product recall when necessary.
Example of manufacturing date, expiry date and lot number printed on pharmaceutical packaging.
What is a batch or lot number?
According to the Code of Federal Regulations of the Food and Drug Administration, ¹“lot number or batch number can be any distinctive combination of letters, numbers or symbols, where the history of manufacture, processing, packaging, holding and distribution of batch or lot of drug product or other material can be determined.”
How is a batch number or lot number printed?
Batch numbers should be printed directly on the product’s primary packaging or on the labels at the end of the manufacturing process. To print a batch number it is important to understand the substrate of the packaging or labels where it must be printed. This is to ensure that the print will adhere to the packaging from holding the product in the warehouse to distribution in various shelves in the market. Maplejet, a Canadian industrial inkjet manufacturer, offers reliable and simple solutions to print batch number or lot number in any types of materials through Hx Nitro thermal inkjet printer.
Why is Hx Nitro best for batch coding?
Hx Nitro thermal inkjet printer has built-in technology to make designing and printing batch number easy and simple for small to large manufacturing industries. It allows the use of personal smartphones or any smart devices to communicate with the printer through its built-in Wi Fi module. This provides operators an easy and convenient way to design the message, set up the correct print parameters for each message, and monitor the status of printers in the production line.
The printer can be mounted on many types of packaging lines. This flexibility gives the Hx Nitro an advantage to print batch number or lot number on bottles, packs or even onto cartons. There are also different types of ink available and color options to print on certain materials.
For consumers, batch numbers printed on the packaging may be just additional information required for a product to pass the government's guidelines and regulations, but it is actually an important part of the whole product distribution cycle to ensure consumer food safety.
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