Sovena is rewriting the rules on product code quality with the Ax-Series Printer

Published: 18-Jul-2018

Sovena, a 100% Portuguese company owned by the Mello family, is one of the world’s largest producers of vegetable and olive oils

With an estimated $1.4 billion in earnings since 2015 – 80% from exports – Sovena puts its trust in Domino to help fulfil its company mission to "inspire people to eat healthier and tastier by using olive oil."

The quality and traceability of its product contents are therefore vital to the success of its operations.

To meet these requirements, Sovena has chosen Domino’s market-leading Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) solution, the Ax350i.

Sovena extracts, processes and bottles its products in eight manufacturing plants and four mills based in eight countries for global distribution.

Although speed and productivity are essential ingredients to Sovena’s recipe for success, traceability also has a key role to play.

“Coding in the food industry is vital and must be guaranteed for every product – it is for exactly this reason that we put our faith in Domino’s Ax350i printers to perform this task,” explains Rui Ramos, Consumer Goods Refinery Production Manager.

“At Sovena, we don’t just seek traditional supplier-customer relationships, we look for partnerships,” continues Ramos. “Domino is our partner for coding and marking, an essential industry protocol.”

Ramos, based in Sovena’s Portuguese Barreiro plant, explains why Domino’s Ax-Series printers meet the requirements for the oil manufacturer’s global distribution processes: “Once we saw the robust, reliable, advanced technology of the Ax350i, the decision was easy.”

Designed for the most demanding of applications, Domino’s Ax350i CIJ printer features precision ink drop technology. It can produce high-quality messages at high speeds onto Sovena’s packaged oil products. The printer incorporates Domino’s i-Pulse inks, which can endure even the harshest post-print processes on the oil manufacturer’s busy production lines.

Lee Metters, Group Business Development Director at Domino, explains: “With global free trade, food manufacturers need to give their end customers the confidence that the product they are buying is consistently high-quality."

"Traceability of ingredients through to end products is an essential part of this meaning that the reliability, accuracy, legibility and durability of coding is essential. We have put a tremendous effort into making the Ax-Series range a step up from previous designs so that our customers can rely on its performance and it’s great to see that we have demonstrated this performance at Sovena.”

Although meeting all the quality guarantee requirements and technological logistics, ultimately, speed and productivity remain vital factors to Domino and Sovena’s success.

The i-Techx software platform helps put Sovena’s operators in control. Its ease of configuration ensures simple integration of the printer into networked systems, automating coding operations through Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to prevent operator error.

You may also like