Having a clear and visible date code on perishable food items is an ever growing need in this country.  Food inspectors want to see legible information and dates on products.  Traceability within the production plant all the way to the consumer is necessary to ensure fresh product.  There are a handful of ways to date code a product at the production plant.  Handheld labelers can be used as the primary means, or a back up should a marking machine go down.

The 1110 pricing gun from Monarch Paxar has many users due to its vertical label dispensing.  With the label coming out vertically, there is less of a need to press the gun itself to the product to apply the label.  The 1110-06 is a great choice for dating and pricing on one, smaller label.  Departments such as bakeries and delis in grocery stores have a big need for this tool.  The Primark P-14 eight band gun has backslashes (/) in the right spots to mark a date such as this example; 11/15/10.  Retail bakeries looking to just mark a date on a tray of pastries on display or any perishable in the store would fine their employees and customers can easily identify the date.

For applications where a SKU, lot, line number, or another type of identification code is necessary in addition to a date, two line tools such as the Monarch 1115 and Monarch 1136 are great.  Combinations of alpha numeric options are able to be marked by the guns.  Please view all the available band layouts for the tools on their own product pages.