I recently had the opportunity to chat with a member of Freshway Foods’ R&D department, Madge Brown, who took time out of her busy schedule tell us about her experience of digitally printing labels with the Vivo! Touch color label printer.
QL: What does Freshway Foods make and sell?
MB: Freshway Foods, located in Sydney, Ohio, provides fresh cut produce solutions to customers such as restaurants, catering companies, and hospitals. Our “fresh-cut and value-added products” save our customers time and money.
QL: Which of your products do you label with the Vivo! Touch printer?
MB: We send the labels out in kits and the customers apply them at store level. For 
example: grab and go salads and apple trays.
QL: About how many labels do you print in each print job (batch size?)
MB: We run several, the largest batch we run is 10,000 and the least we run is 6 labels depending on the product!
QL: Have you had any maintenance problems with the Vivo! Touch and if so what?
MB: At one time we had thought the label printer had a major issue and QuickLabel technical support had a loaner printer boxed up and ready to ship out to us. Then we figured out I had the wrong image drum in it.
QL: How did QuickLabel Technical Support respond to your issue?
MB: They were going to get a truck to deliver it overnight! Also, I was sent an order of 8,000 printed labels the following day at no cost to me other than the cost of the blank label material itself after I sent them the artwork that I needed for my order! There are truly a great bunch of Tech Support folks there. None better in my opinion. Their group has yet to say ‘We can’t do that today.’
QL: How has printing labels in short-run batches helped Freshway Foods?
MB: It helps because we don’t have a lot of inventory sitting around …paid for inventory that we may or may not use equals money sitting around.
QL: You purchase labels and inkexclusively with QuickLabel, do you find the pricing competitive or is it more expensive?
MB: I can tell you that we have run over 
900,000 labels and the printer has more than paid for itself. As a matter of fact, we just purchased a second Vivo Touch. When I said the printer paid for itself, I mean it paid for itself, the new printer, and all of the materials needed to run the over 900,000 labels and then some. The Vivo! Touch is great. On average we were paying 13 cents a label printed outside and now I print them in house for approximately 3 cents (including materials).
QL: How is Customer Service with QuickLabel?
MB: AWESOME!!!! Joe Quednau, our QuickLabel salesman, is the best!
QL: Did you attend QuickLabel College and if so was it worth it?
MB: QuickLabel College is a great time. You tour their facility, learn not only the machine but in my case I had never had a Photoshop® class and the trainer, Joe, taught me a lot about that program as well even though that wasn’t his job and never said “well we don’t teach that in this class.”
QL: Have you had any customer feedback about your labels?
MB: No but no negative feedback is good feedback as far as I am concerned and in just over a year of printing our own labels we have had zero complaints!
We’re pleased to see that our good friend, Madge, is happy with the Vivo! Touch and that Freshway Foods is reaping the benefits of printing labels on-demand. We want nothing but the best for our customers and it brings a smile to our faces to know that the Vivo! Touch is doing the job for Freshway Foods.
If you would like to learn more about the Vivo! Touch color label printer and schedule an in-person demonstration, let us know! We’d be happy to answer any of your questions about in-house label printing!
