Let’s face it; a lot of considerations come into play when packaging food. You need to garner the right size, shape, style, and material to appeal to your customers and ensure food safety, all within your budget.

You also must affix a great deal of coding to your packaging and this is where a Willet coder or Willett printer might come into play. For decades, companies in the food service industry have found a Willett coder an indispensable piece of equipment for all of their coding needs.

A Willett coder can use many different types of inks, but for food companies, these inks must be food-safe inks. Additionally, your packaging also must meet food-safety standards. There are several commonly used types of food-safe inks and types of materials approved for food packaging. These materials and inks are intended to enhance food safety and ensure that no dangerous toxins or chemicals come into contact with your beverages or specialty food products.

What Are Food-Safe Inks?
If you are new to the specialty food business, it will be important to learn about Food and Drug Administration regulations regarding the types of inks that you can use safely on your packaging. In some cases, your ink might be placed directly on your food product, such as an eggshell. The FDA can provide you with a list of suitable inks, but here are a few examples of food safe ink options and many of these options can be used with your Willett printer or Willet coder.

Regular Offset Inks
Conventional offset food-safe inks typically come in the form of a paste. More often than not, they are natural pigments in solvents such as vegetable oils, mineral oil or fatty acid esters. Their vehicles are usually modified natural resins.

Solvent-Based Inks
These are food-safe liquid inks, including ethyl acetate, ethanol and ethoxy propanol. Safe resins and modified resins may be infused for better ink stability and optimum thickness. Food-safe inks based on ethyl acetate are perhaps the most popular across food industry.

Water-Based Printing Inks
Water-based inks comprise aqueous polymer solutions and dispersions with natural pigments and sometimes modified resins. As you might expect, such inks are not only food-safe but also eco-friendly.

Materials Approved for Food Packaging

There are many materials that are suitable for food packaging. The option you choose will depend on factors such as cost, ease of availability, practicality and perhaps sustainability.

Glass: An Eco-Friendly Choice
Most of us have been to a local recycling center and dropped off a glass bottle for recycling or perhaps we just place glass jars in your recycling bin at home. The good news is that glass is 100% recyclable, which makes it a sustainable packaging option for some food products. Currently, 50% of glass containers are recycled, with up to 90% in colored glass. When it comes to glass, you will need to select food-safe inks for your Willett printer that allows you print on glass without smearing and smudging.

Metal Packaging
Nearly half of metal in the world is recycled. With high-temperature fusion, recycled metal can be a formidable material for use in food packaging or you can consider using new metal materials for your food packaging.

Recycled Paper and Cardboard
Recycled paper has always been an integral part of the packaging industry. For food packaging, however, most companies prefer a hybrid of recycled paper and virgin material to ensure total safety.

Thermoplastics
There are many thermoplastics approved for use as food packaging, and most of these options are highly recyclable. Thermoplastics are easy to mold or shape in virtually any design and also can be used in combination with paperboard and foil.

No matter what type of materials you are using, we can formulate an ink that works on your packaging materials and that is designed specifically for your Willett printer. Our alternative inks are far less expensive that OEM inks, but the quality is just as high. Our main goals are to reduce downtime for your operation and to save you as much money as possible. If you need ink, cleaners and make-up fluids for any make or model of coder, including Willett coders, give us a call today.