Egg producer improves efficiency with flexible marking system

The Australian egg industry is a powerhouse of food production, supplying over 6 billion eggs annually. With strict labelling regulations requiring best-before dates, farm codes and batch numbers for full traceability, egg producers need reliable, efficient and cost-effective marking solutions to maintain compliance and streamline operations.

Spanish poultry company DAGU was in a similar situation and had been searching for an operator-friendly and reliable marking system to work 15 hours per day, efficiently marking egg cartons with best-before dates and batch numbers.

DAGU, founded in 1980, is a poultry company based in Guadalajara, Spain. From its origins in the 1950s to the present day, the company has continuously evolved, and values excellence, service and food safety. Today, DAGU is part of the HEVO Group, which produces over 70 million dozen eggs annually and employs nearly 500 people, 40% of whom are women. The cooperative is deeply committed to fostering inclusion and proudly supports a diverse team. Luis Alberto Sanz, Production Manager at DAGU and member of the association since 1990, highlights the operation.

“Our cooperative’s facilities are state-of-the-art throughout the entire production process. We meticulously select raw materials, manufacture the best feed for our animals and produce eggs of the highest quality,” he said.

DAGU has maintained a leading position in the Spanish egg-laying poultry sector and is widely acknowledged as being at the forefront of the field in terms of innovation, outstanding quality, advanced equipment and systems, as well as meticulous attention to detail. A traceability system enables DAGU to keep permanent track of the farm of origin and the laying date of each egg. ‘Farm to fork’ traceability guarantees flawless control of quality and food safety throughout the entire production process.

DAGU had been searching for an operator-friendly and exceptionally reliable marking system to work 15 hours per day, efficiently marking 200,000 egg cartons per batch with best-before dates, farm information and batch numbers. Depending on the carton, different imprints were required. Another requirement was that all printers could be efficiently managed from a single PC via VNC (virtual network computing).

DAGU opted for an advanced solution from Leibinger’s official partner in Spain — Lusaro MarkColor, S.L. — and now has 16 Leibinger JET2 NEO printers installed, one at each exit of the egg graders.

“We greatly appreciate the high flexibility in printing different packaging formats and the simple, centralised operation of the printers,” Sanz said. “Service, delivery of consumables and coordination of all requests are ideally covered by Lusaro MarkColor. The collaboration is excellent. ”

DAGU designed the supports on which the electric actuator and the JET2 NEO are installed, which resulted in a highly flexible support for the different carton formats. A PC was placed on top of the sorting machine from which all the printers are managed via VNC. The project was initially commissioned in 2020 and DAGU now has 16 JET2 NEO printers installed on its Moba sorters.

The JET2 NEO is a high-performance CIJ solution for all standard coding and marking applications. Introduced in 2000, it is used worldwide to print data such as best-before dates, production dates and lot numbers on up to three lines, with a variety of options and inks available. The printer is designed to ensure fast, reliable performance combined with low energy and solvent consumption. It features Leibinger’s Sealtronic print head technology, which minimises downtime and maximises productivity. Sanz is delighted with the performance of the LEIBINGER printers.

“We would definitely recommend these high-quality LEIBINGER printers to other companies who have similarly high requirements in terms of quality, productivity and reliability,” he said.