The Importance of Asking Questions – High Pressure Pasteurization
As our last two blogs have illustrated, we ask a lot of questions here at Star Label Products. Sometimes our customers get frustrated; they need a label to stick on their product and convey the necessary information, that’s all. But as we’ve demonstrated, there are a whole host of parameters that go into crafting the right label solution for the task at hand.
A while back we had a customer come to us that was packaging meat using a new process called high pressure pasteurization. The meat was to be packaged, labeled and put through the process. Extremely high pressure would be used to kill all bacteria in or on the package. Then the package would be rinsed off and put through a drier. The process was similar to what your car undergoes at a car wash. So the labels needed to withstand intense pressure and a rough wash and dry cycle. You can check out a video of the process below to see what we were up against.
As this was a process we’d never worked with before, we took the time to do our research and develop a number of options. When we went to present them to the customer, he informed us that the label would be applied after the high pressure pasteurization process was complete. This was a difficult challenge that would have gone on to require specialty adhesives and materials that would have required additional testing. In the end we found out that the label was applied after the fact, which created a completely different and much simpler application.
By asking questions, we make sure to get the label solution right the first time. And by getting as much information as possible up front, we can get that solution to our customers faster, saving them both time and money.