ESPERA-WERKE GMBH (Switzerland) - Schwab Guillod AG trusts on the flexibility of the ESPERA NOVA ES-R machine series for weighing and labeling of its fruit and vegetable products.

Since more than 80 years, Schwab Guillod is one of the leading companies in the fruit and vegetable trade business in Switzerland. The company independently selects its agricultural partners locally and abroad according to high quality standards. Its success is in the quality and rapid availability of its products. Schwab Guillod applies the highest quality standards, which are regularly discussed and checked with its agricultural partners. The product range includes leafy vegetables, lettuce varieties, asparagus, tomatoes and onions. As well as stone fruit, citrus and exotic fruits.

"From farm to fork" also applies to the fruit and vegetable industry:

In order to get the fresh fruits and vegetables to the end consumer as quickly as possible, production and the associated production processes must be well structured and closely timed, to enable a fast product throughput. Especially in the end of line area, the flexibility of ESPERA weighing and labeling systems offers an optimal workflow.

Requirements for weighing and labeling lines for naturally grown products - The ESPERA 3D camera is the perfect solution:

In fruit and vegetable products, no two products are alike. Grown products such as fruit and vegetables always differ in their product geometry, shape and size. This makes precise product labeling with one (or more) labels all the more demanding. On the one hand, to avoid poorly labeled products, because this would generate unnecessary "scrap" for the production plant. On the other hand, in the case of irregular product geometries, attention must also be paid to the readability of the label for the end consumer. After all, what could be worse than wrinkled labels on a product package that leads to a non readability of the label? With its fully automatic labeling systems, ESPERA focuses on maximum precision and guarantees a labeling accuracy of up to +/- 1mm. For grown products, the integrated 3D camera offers the possibility of a completely individual product labeling. A camera scans the geometry of a product in real time and determines the perfect labeling position fully automatically. This ensures that the label fits perfectly on the package and that the end consumer can read the label easily. Especially for companies that have a large product variation or naturally grown products, the 3D camera is an optimal tool to improve the quality of the labeling process and to prevent poorly labeled products from reaching the retail market in the first place.

Large label variation:

As an additional challenge to the different product shapes, Schwab Guillod AG also has the requirement to print products with a wide variety of label information. For each individual product, there is a wide range of barcode formats and lot numbers for traceability, which have to be managed in a central production database as well as printed on the corresponding label. In addition, there are a large number of different label designs and label geometries that have to be assigned to the products depending on the customer.

Checkweighing and weight-price price labeling combined in one machine:

At Schwab Guillod, part of the products are marked with a fixed weight and receive a fixed price, regardless of the real weight. The other part of the products is provided with weight-dependent price information. In that case, each product has its own individual price, depending on its weight. The modularity of the ESPERA labeling systems allows both functions in only one machine. Depending on the product type, it is possible to choose between the checkweigher production mode or the classic weight-price labeling mode.

In addition, an extra-long scale belt enables uncomplicated weighing of long products such as leeks or celery sticks.

Round products are optimally guided via the central belt groove. This allows a wide variety of products to be weighed and labeled fully automatically with just one machine type.

Digitization and networking production lines:

The interface solution ESPERA ESPROM NG enables a connection of the labeling lines to the production-internal ERP system MS Dynamics. All relevant product data, such as product texts, nutrition value information, best before dates and daily updated price information are maintained in the in-house ERP system. The ESPROM NG interface is used to assign the product data and order data to the individual labeling lines in production, and the customer orders are started via tablet terminal in the final step. This enables an optimum production workflow with minimum throughput times and always guarantees real-time provision of all relevant labelling data.