Peace of Mind

With corporate offices and a roastery situated in Minneapolis, Peace Coffee has one store on Minnehaha Ave. and a second in nearby Richfield, MN. Its artfully blended brews, sourced from smaller, organic farmers, also are available at select retailers.

Peace Coffee traces its roots to the mid-1990s, but it was only about three years ago that the international purveyor of fine beans made a concerted effort to market limited-run, shorter-term coffees. To do so, it needed a faster, more cost-effective method of churning out its colorful labels, explained operations director Jon Katzung. Peace turned to inkjet output for its answer.

After a digital printing shopping expedition, the company selected the LX900 Color Label Printer, from manufacturer Primera Technology, which produces at speeds up to 4.5 inches per second.

Peace’s head roaster, Derek De La Paz, explained why, previously, very small lots of coffee did not have a lot of use: “We didn’t have any way to market them,” he said. But by employing the LX900 digital printing technology, “we can create a specific label for four bags of coffee that [might] come in. We wouldn’t even be able to entertain that before.”

De La Paz even cited one-off and private-labeling scenarios: “One bag of coffee that comes in – we can create a special sticker; 30 bags that come in, we can create a special sticker. If a small, little café down the street wants their own little blend, we can create [for] them a special little sticker. So, that has basically enabled us to add on these new, seasonal blends.”

Telling Stories

“One of the things for us is we’re really trying to connect people to the places that the coffee comes from,” said CEO Lee Wallace, “and to the idea that coffee is an agricultural product. So, when you have to buy really big label runs, you’re boxing yourself in, and you don’t have a lot of flexibility.”

The Primera LX900 is enabling Peace Coffee to “tell the story more,” according to Wallace. “It gives us the flexibility that we want to have in terms of being able to change up our blends; to be able to tell people more information about the products,” she noted. The company has incorporated two-dimensional Quick Response (QR) codes on the back of several labels, which “allows people to … [link] to a website that actually tells them exactly where that coffee came from and the whole back story behind it,” Wallace concluded.

About the Printer

Separate ink cartridges for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black keep operating costs low since only one color at a time needs to be replaced. The replaceable print head uses all-new technology to produce razor-sharp text, brilliant graphics, and the most photo-realistic printing ever offered on a dedicated short-run label printing device, Primera asserted.

In addition to the coffee market, other typical applications include product labels for wine, water, bakery, confectionary, meat, cheese, and hundreds of other specialty and gourmet foods. The LX900 also is ideally suited for test marketing, prepress proofing, industrial product hazardous goods marking and retail labeling.

Printer drivers are included for Windows XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS X 10.5 (or higher) along with easy-to-use design software for Microsoft Windows. Most other popular graphic design programs for Windows and Mac also can be used to design and print labels.

Substrates include many different inkjet-qualified label and tag materials, including Primera's exclusive TuffCoat Extreme white and clear polyester and white BOPP (Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene) film. Printed labels are highly resistant to water, scratches, smudges, and tearing. Water-resistant paper labels are available in high-gloss, semi-gloss and matte finishes. Label size is as small as .75 inch wide and .75 inch long up to a maximum of 8 inches wide and 24 inches long.

Priced at around $3,000 (MSRP) in the US and Canada, the LX900 is available from Primera's resellers and distributors worldwide as well as online at www.primerastore.com.