In the highly regulated food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, product recalls due to mislabeling can have severe consequences, including reputational damage, legal liability, and potential harm to consumers. For manufacturers seeking to address these risks, in-house digital label printing can be a powerful tool for preventing mislabeling errors and ensuring product safety.
Let’s take a look at how a mislabeling crisis can occur — and, more importantly, how to easily prevent them — based on our new white paper, How Manufacturers Can Prevent Mislabeling that Causes Product Recalls: Eliminate Costly Errors with In-House Label Printing.
A mislabeling crisis can occur in various scenarios. Some examples:
- Packaging line changeovers: Workers may accidentally apply the wrong label when switching between products.
- Obsolete labels: Labels may become outdated due to changes in product ingredients or regulations.
- Front and back label mismatches: The front and back labels may not be paired correctly.
- Production floor errors: Workers may overlook label discrepancies or make mistakes due to fatigue or distractions.
- Misapplied clinical trial labels: Clinical trial products require precise labeling, as any errors could compromise the integrity of the trial.
The perils of product mislabeling are real. Due to incorrect drug identification and dosage, leading pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Qualitest Pharmaceuticals, and Upsher-Smith have all undertaken national product recalls.
As a solution, many manufacturers are turning to in-house digital label printing for a variety of benefits — from savings costs to streamlining the production line to customizing package designs — as well as to battle the challenges of mislabeling.
In-house digital label printing offers a variety of advantages in combatting the risks of mislabeling versus the traditional method of buying and stocking quantities of pre-printed labels. They include:
- Just-in-time printing: Labels are printed immediately before use, eliminating the risk of selecting the wrong label from inventory.
- Database-driven label control: Label content is directly linked to an enterprise database, ensuring the accuracy of printed information.
- Touchscreen control: Operators can easily select and confirm the correct label using a touchscreen interface.
- Mobile printing: Labels can be printed directly at the production line, minimizing the risk of misapplication.
- On-demand label updates: Changes to label content can be implemented immediately without the need for printing plates.
In-house digital label printing involves the following steps:
- Work orders are received.
- Blank labels are printed with the correct content.
- Operators load the labels onto the label applicator.
- Labels are applied to the correct batch of products.
The benefits are many:
- Eliminating Human Error: In-house digital label printing significantly reduces the risk of human error by automating the label printing process and eliminating the need for manual label selection. This helps to prevent mislabeling incidents and ensures product safety.
- Protecting Brand Reputation: Product recalls due to mislabeling can severely damage a company’s reputation. In-house digital label printing helps to prevent these recalls and protect a company’s brand image.
- Enhancing Product Safety: Accurate labeling is essential for ensuring product safety. In-house digital label printing helps to ensure that products are labeled correctly, reducing the risk of harm to consumers.
The results are robust for businesses and their customers: Avoiding or reducing potential economic damages, legal liability, and even human health risks.
The risks of mislabeling are critical. Learn more — for all the details, get our new white paper, How Manufacturers Can Prevent Mislabeling that Causes Product Recalls: Eliminate Costly Errors with In-House Label Printing.
