May has been a good month, with lots going on in all parts of the Jenkins business, but maybe at a more manageable pace than usual. Perhaps it’s because some areas have been a bit quieter, and we have been able to catch our breath and progress some of the projects we have been working, which now seem to be coming to fruition.
In horticulture, especially the fruit crops, we are always somewhere in the season. Whether it’s pre, mid or coming to the end of the season there is always a part to play in planning for the next part of the season. We have time to work on what’s working and what can be better for “next season”.
My focus is on continually improving service, planning and delivery of products in good time for when they’re needed. The inherit changes and challenges of forecasts of crops, produce quality, supply and demand etc is what it is and certainly nothing that I have control over. To a great degree these anomalies won’t change any time soon, so our continual improvement is about having the best information and relationships to smooth the lines on the graphs between too much stock and not enough.
In my world of labels, tags and printers the fog is clearing around some of the challenges we have around waste and sustainability pillars.
We are starting to have some real gains with our linerless label printers. We can offer two great solutions to our customers who are really wanting to be innovative and sustainable at the same time. If the problem is that you want to remove packaging label liner waste just tick one of these boxes – do you want us to arrange your liner to be collected from your site and be recycled offshore or are you ready to replace your current printers with linerless. We’ve got the answer, just tick which box you need to deal with now.
Another project that we’ve been working hard on with our print partners Sato, is the tag for netted produce, often referred to as a wine glass tag because of its shape. Our goal was to produce a HOME compostable tag. Give us an A for effort on this goal, we’ve tried different combinations on tag stock, card and paper laminations but we fail to achieve an end product that stands up to the demands of feeding through packhouse equipment, the bagging process and even getting into the crate for store distribution. We tried, failed, tried again and failed and tried one more time and you guessed it, failed again. But we did try and not everything works or turns out how you want it to, but we kept trying. We’re kicking that idea to the outside of the field for now and have re-focused on meeting our next goal of a recyclable tag. Ah ha, now you’re talking, we think we’ve cracked it. We have a product that ticks all the boxes and can be recycled in the soft plastic recycling scheme.
For such a small component of what we sell and supply the produce tag is one of the most questioned or criticised products for not having a home in the recycling channel. I mean the success of the Packnatur® netting has been resounding with customers and consumers alike, that it has got the big tick to be fully certified home compostable was a real game changer.
We’ll have more information about our recyclable tag soon once the final supply chain trials are completed and all the boxes are ticked before going to market. Watch this space.
Catch you next month.