Lightning Labels Blog

Custom Labels for Frozen Products

We get many calls from people who want to put labels on their ice cream or some other kind of frozen product. What kind of material can stand up to the harsh conditions inside a freezer? Well the good news is that our standard White BOPP material is up to the task. The adhesive on this material is good down to -20 degrees which means it should be fine inside most commercial freezers. The minimum temperature that you can safely apply this label is 23 degrees, so unless you have a labeling machine deep inside your freezer, it will work fine. This material is also designed to withstand the water and ice condensation that could occur on the container.

With the standard adhesives available today you simply don't have to worry about your labels sticking whatever kind of frozen product you have. Here at Lightning Labels we have plenty of customers who apply their labels to ice cream, frozen yogurt, meat, bread and many other products that spend most of their life in the freezer.

Starting a Food Business

Here at Lightning Labels we print a lot of food labels. Hot sauce, coffee, honey, salsa, chocolate, ice cream, jelly, olive oil, soup - these are just some of the food products where we supply the labels. The food business is very competitive and it is not easy to break through into the national retail chains.

Today in the Small Business section of BusinessWeek.com, there is an interesting article on how a couple of young entrepreneurs with little business experience went from making their product for friends in their kitchen to the shelves of Whole Foods. The article provides insight into how they were able to make the leap from part-time hobby to professional food business. For anyone trying to get their business off the ground it is interesting reading.

A Striking Hot Sauce Label

We printed this label a few days ago and I really like the colors here so I thought we should feature it on the blog. This hot sauce label was created by Mike Shultz of Shultz's Gourmet where they make a delicious range of sauces and seasonings. We have a bottle of this hot sauce sitting in our office that I am anxious to try but the label looks so good on the bottle we have decided to keep it on display in our reception area.

The hot sauce label is printed on our White BOPP material with a gloss laminate that really shows off the quality of our digital label printer. The vibrant colors we can produce is perfect for the hot colors required on a hot sauce label. The white BOPP is an excellent material because it is very durable and will hold up well even after months sitting in the fridge. And we always put a protective laminate on the label to protect the inks, so the label will look just as vibrant a year from now as it is today.

Delicious Looking Ice Cream Labels

Gaby's Farm is a small family run farm in South Florida that grows exotic tropical fruit plants and makes ice cream from the fruit. Their ice cream is all natural and they have complete control of their production process because they grow their own trees and harvest their own fruit. I chose to feature this label because these are my two favorite fruits - mango and passionfruit. I would love to taste this sorbet, but right now it is only available to South Florida residents.

Their ice cream labels are beautifully designed in rich color, and they really show off the capabilities of our digital label printing press. The labels were printed on our standard White BOPP material with permanent adhesive. The adhesive is guaranteed down to -20 degrees, and the labels can be applied down to 23 degrees. It is also very durable, so it is the perfect label material to use for ice cream. Gaby's Farm also took advantage of digital label printing by doing small quantities of 13 different label versions.

Eye Catching Honey Labels

We printed these honey labels here last week and I thought they were very striking. They were for Pot of Gold Aparies, a small one person business in northern Colorado founded by Stephen Hack. Stephen has been a bee keeper for 6 years, but has only been selling his products for the last year and a half.

Pot of Gold Aparies has two products - honey and a handcream made from beeswax. He sells his products at some local markets and also through word of mouth. Right now this is just a part time business for Stephen, but one day he would like to grow his business into a full time operation.

Stephen has taken an important step by using professionally printed labels instead of just the home made variety. It is a simple but eye catching label design that will give his products a more professional look. It can only help Stephen sell more of his honey and handcream.

Cool Hot Sauce Labels

Danny Cash started making hot sauce in his own kitchen about four and a half years ago. Everyone loved his creations so he decided to do it professionally. Now he creates large batches of hot sauce in a commercial kitchen and sells his products all over the world.

Private label hot sauce is their specialty. I know that for a fact because just in the last few months I have seen his hot sauce in several restaurants throughout Colorado. These days he has eight products and over 300 different labels. That is one of the advantages of using the digital label printing of Lightning Labels - he can combine many of these small private label orders into one job and get a great price - you can't do that with traditional label printing.

Pictured above are three of his products under his own Colorado Gourmet label. I like the contrast of the cool Colorado mountains with the fiery hot sauce. If you feel like trying out his products you can order it by the bottle on their web site.

The Lightning Labels Blog will be taking a summer vacation - I am heading to California for 10 days. Be back later in the month.

A Mouth Watering Custom Label

We printed a number of cookie labels here last week - they were all mouthwatering designs like this one that made us all hungry.

I am mentioning this label here because it shows off a perfect application of our digital label printing. Blue Flour has a large number of cookie flavors, but they only want to order a small number of each label. Ordering just 100 labels of 15 types of cookies (front and back labels), they were able to get a good price for their labels, with our high quality color printing.

These labels were beautifully designed by Nadia Zadniprianska, a graphic designer in New York. They were printed on our standard white BOPP material with a gloss laminate. They will be going on cardboard canisters with a corresponding back label with all the nutrrtional information, as well as a round label on the lid of the canister.

If you are curious to try these Apple Strudel cookies (I know I am) then contact Teri Pringle at Blue Flour.