Belgian social enterprise fights back against food waste while feeding the vulnerable quickly and cost effectively, supported by OKI Europe Ltd’s Five Colour Label Printer

Egham – Belgian social enterprise enVie, has been fighting back against food waste by making delicious healthy soups from fresh surplus vegetables supplied by Belgian farmers, to help vulnerable people access healthy food during the Covid-19 pandemic. The ethical organisation also promotes job creation by giving long term unemployed people opportunities to return to work.

In reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, enVie, alongside various other organisations, launched the ‘Robin Food’ project to transform food surpluses into healthy sustainable foods that are made accessible to vulnerable people and families during the crisis. The project created a greater and more urgent demand for labels for enVie’s soup bottles. Thanks to OKI Europe’s Pro1050 Five Colour Label Printer, provided by OKI partner Tasco, this challenge was quickly resolved.

Before launching the humanitarian project, enVie had been using an external print supplier which proved costly, resulted in lengthy lead times and wastage of surplus labels. Following the implementation of OKI’s Pro1050 label printer, enVie can print the exact volume of labels it requires for each soup batch in-house and on-demand.

“Our project started with 20,000 litres of soup and with the support of the public we collected funds to produce 70,000 litres of soup,” says enVie General Manager Naomie Smith. “With our new printer we have complete flexibility to print colourful labels for both Robin Food and for our enVie soups.”

“As the printer can print nine metres a minute, we can get the labels out very fast! Especially on the Covid-19 project, we gained a lot of time when having the design ready, we could start printing immediately. Normally we would have to send the design to the print shop, wait for the proof and wait again for the delivery of the printed labels.”

Guy Boxall, Senior Manager, Narrow Format Printing at OKI Europe Ltd added: “The Pro1050 is designed to deliver speed, flexibility and professional results cost effectively for organisations that would benefit from being able to print labels on-demand, in-house. The work that enVie does to help people and families in need is truly fantastic and we are delighted that OKI’s Pro1050 label printer has helped enVie and the Robin Food project deliver a real social impact during these challenging times. Alongside the free social distancing signage packs that OKI Europe is offering to businesses throughout the pandemic, this is another great example of the important role print can play in making a real difference in otherwise challenging situations.”

OKI’s Pro1050 uses digital LED and dry toner technology to bring a new colour dimension to label printing, providing a fifth colour or ‘CMYK+1’ option. The printer is ideal for short run label printing and can provide anywhere between a single label and thousands of labels a day. The Pro1050 enables printing on a versatile range of media and makes printing on transparent or coloured label media straightforward by printing an opaque white background under the CMYK image.

enVie has been able to increase production output, label quality and reduce wastage and costs thanks to the implementation of the label printer and the success of the project even resulted in the King of Belgium Skyping with enVie to learn more about the ‘Robin Food’ project.

To find out more about this case study visit www.oki.com/eu.