First to Market
Insofar as product innovation goes, Mother Parkers boasts a number of important industry firsts, according to Bredt, including the launch of coffee single-packs back in the 1950s; becoming the first Ontario distributor of freeze-dried coffee in the 1970s; and using the then-new MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) techniques a decade later by nitrogen-flushing its foodservice fresh-packs.
More recently, the company became the first Canadian coffee producer to start cooking its coffee beans with highly specialized, computer-controlled roasting technology, according to Bredt.
Manufactured by the German-based Probat-Werke von Gimborn Mashinenfabrik GmbH, the Progres system helps plant supervisors oversee the day-to-day roasting activities in a way that ensures top product quality and freshness, Bredt explains.
In similar vein, last year Mother Parkers went live with a computerized inventory and demand planning system—developed by Voyager Solutions—to optimize the monitoring and tracking of its inventory supplies, Bredt reveals.
“The Higgins family has constantly reinvested in our business to ensure that the quality of our products is never compromised,” states Bredt, adding that such proactive approach to capital investment also extends to all of the company’s packaging operations—particularly when it comes to product coding equipment.
With its coffee packaged in a diverse array of formats such as canisters, bags, bricks, pods, pillow-pack, etc., the company’s Mississauga plants employ a total of 18 SmartDate 1, 2 and 3 model coders from Markem-Imaje, according to Bredt, who expects even more of the SmartDate coders to arrive in the near future.
Used to apply lot umber and date code information to each package of coffee leaving the plant, the thermal-transfer SmartDate coders provide Mother Parkers with an efficient and cost-effective means of printing clean and legible batch codes, best-before dates, and other key variable information directly onto a broad variety of packaging substrates, including the widely-used flexible film.
When applying the data, the SmartDate’s printhead moves out by activating a pneumatic valve that causes the printhead to press the ink ribbon against the packaging material.
The heat generated from the printhead dots melts the inks, and the pressure of the printhead against the packaging material transfers the ink onto the package in less than a blink of an eye.
Importantly, the Markem-Imaje coders utilize stepper motors—brushless, synchronous electric motors that can divide a full rotation into a large number of steps—to ensure optimal printhead motion and reliable ribbon feed.
Because of the high premium on quality control that Mother Parker places in all phases of its production process, all the production equipment and packaging equipment used at its plants must also perform at the highest level, asserts Bredt.
“The coffee and tea manufacturing industry is a very competitive one,” he reasons, “and it is one in which it is the consistency of product which ultimately drives the market.
“But thanks to our highly automated way of manufacturing, and monitoring and controlling the ingredients,” he concludes, “we are not only very consistent, but I think we are more consistent than anyone else out there.”
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