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Printers help bottom line become healthy

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating, a maker of nutritious meals, replaces preprinted labels with in-house printed labels that reduce cost and waste.

Each wraparound label seals the meal's tray and lid.
Each wraparound label seals the meal's tray and lid.

For years, Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating (SSHE), makers and distributors of fresh, refrigerated meals, purchased preprinted labels to wrap around its two-piece, microwavable plastic containers. SSHE used printers only to mark a use-by date or distributed-on date on the label.

That began to change in 2002 when the Ottawa, IL-based firm purchased Avery Dennison Model 6406 thermal-transfer printers. Late last year, SSHE added three more units used at Ottawa and franchises in Minnesota and Georgia that prepare and hand-pack meals. Why the change?

“We’re now printing labels with an ingredients statement; heating instructions; a USDA ‘legend’; our company name, phone number, and address; and a distributed-on date,” explains Kathy Tuntland, co-owner of SSHE, which was founded in 1985 by Seattle Sutton, who is a registered nurse, and her physician husband.

Economics also played a role in the decision to print in-house. “Printing our own labels cut our costs because we can implement a change in meal items when we want,” Tuntland says. “With preprinted labels, if there was any inaccurate information, we couldn’t use those labels, so we would have to throw them away and order new ones. That absolutely cost us more money, though I don’t have specific figures. And it could take up to a month to have new labels printed, depending on the supplier’s schedule.”

Asked to provide an example of such an inaccuracy, Tuntland says, “We would get preprinted labels in quantities of tens of thousands for one of the 100-plus different kinds of meals we make. If the ingredients in the meal are printed in the wrong order of predominance, the label is incorrect. Then we might be stuck with thousands of labels that we need to discard. Plus we then have to order labels with ingredients printed in the correct order.” Ingredient statement changes would be required any time an ingredient changed in one of the meals.

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