How Barcode Labeling Improves Traceability & Security

By Travis Wayne
1 Comment

One of the biggest challenges that cultivators, processors and distributors face in doing business is the requirement to track the product at every step in the production process, from seed to sale. When you add the wide range of label sizes and requirements across the supply chain, labeling can feel overwhelming. While business systems such as METRC, BioTrack, MJFreeway and others are key, integrating accurate and secure barcode labeling with those systems will streamline the end-to-end process while meeting traceability requirements. Here are some things to consider, no matter what role in the cannabis supply chain you play.

Cultivation: Where Tracking and Labeling Starts

Cultivation is where the tracking process begins – integrating barcode labeling METRC, BioTrack, MJ Freeway from the start will streamline the end-to-end process

It’s crucial to implement accurate labeling processes from the beginning, whether growing for a customer or your own vertically integrated operation. The cannabis industry is faced with strict labeling regulations for a variety of cannabis products. Start with a labeling system that can integrate with METRC, BioTrack, MJ Freeway or other seed to sale software solutions. Your barcode labeling solution should also include label approval requirements, so you have role-based access and transparency with label changes and print history in case of issues or recalls. Whatever cannabis labeling regulations your business faces, label design software helps you create compliant cannabis labels throughout the supply chain, from grower to consumer.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Labeling

Select regulations require growers to leverage RFID technology to track the location of the plants in their grow houses. RFID technology also enables accurate real-time inventory analysis and helps reduce manual labor costs, as well as errors that can occur with manual counting. To accurately encode RFID tags with variable plant data, be sure you are using a barcode labeling system that can enable easy RFID tag encoding that integrates data from all your business systems. Fastening RFID tags to plants across your grow house floor enables quick and easy location tracking, and RFID reading removes the need for a manual line of sight and allows hundreds of tags to be read at the same time, speeding up shipping and receiving.

Lab Testing

After a plant is cultivated, a certain percentage is sent to a lab to be tested to ensure its proper strain, weight and compound makeup. After your product has been lab tested, leverage the data from your certificate of analysis to accurately display on your cannabis product labels, including:

  • Pass/fail chemical testing
  • Final date of testing & packaging
  • Identification of testing lab
  • Cannabinoid profile & potency levels
  • Efficiently display lab testing results on product labels with the use of a QR code for the consumer to review the independent lab’s certificate of analysis

Processing and Production: Tracking and Labeling After the Plant Has Been Harvested

A lot of information needs to go on a cannabis label. Whether you’re producing pre-rolls, packaged flower, edibles, beverages, topicals or cartridges, your labeling software must have the capability to create a wide variety of label sizes with barcodes that encode a large volume of data, while also being fully compliant and showing consumer appeal.

Your cannabis labeling software should do the following for you:

  • Support database integration to populate variable data from METRC, BioTrack, and other systems
  • Import high-resolution artwork and leverage with dynamic barcodes and variable data
  • Contain barcode creation wizards for 1D & 2D barcodes
  • Automate weigh & print
  • RGB/CMYK color matching
  • Feature secure label approval processes, label change tracking and print history
  • Offer WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) printing
  • Automatically trigger printing directly from scales and scanners when cannabis is weighed
Automatically integrating data with your barcode labeling software improves regulatory compliance, security and reduces manual processes that can lead to labeling errors

Integrate labeling with your seed to sale software solution to automatically trigger label printing by an action in your seed to sale system or by monitoring a database. By integrating your label printing system with your seed to sale traceability system, you can expect to minimize errors, increase print speeds and maximize your ROI. Your business system already holds the variable data such as product names, license number, batch or lot codes, allergens, net quantity, cannabis facts, warning statements and more. By systematically sending this data to the right label template at the right time, labeling becomes an efficient and cost-effective process.

Distribution: labeling for consumer and industry demands

The ability to manage and distribute inventory efficiently is critical in the cannabis market. Warehouses and distributors need to ensure proper storage, handling and traceability of product, from the warehouse to the truck.

Leverage your labeling software to easily create:

  • Packaging labels
  • Shipping labels
  • Case & pallet labels
  • Inventory labels

If you use the same data for your documents and labels, consider moving document printing into your label design software for greater efficiency. An advanced label creation and integration software enables label and document printing standardization by allowing multiple database records to be on one file. That means when new documents or labels come into your database, your software can seamlessly integrate.

Dispensaries can benefit from integrated seed to sale labeling for traceability, speed to market

Whether you’re a small outlet or a large dispensary, you benefit from integrated barcode labeling that starts from the beginning of the process. How? When barcode labeling software is integrated with seed to sale software, product is fully traced throughout the entire process, from tagging each plant at cultivation to identifying the consumer at point of sale, and accurately communicating that data back to METRC, BioTrack and other critical systems. Some dispensaries do package raw flower onsite, which many times means manually weighing, recording and entering the weight on the label, which is a time consuming and error-prone process. Integrating weigh and print functionality with barcode software enables dispensaries to use the action of weighing raw flower to automatically trigger the label print job. The variable weight is then accurately and automatically populated on cannabis flower package labels, creating an accurate and efficient on-demand labeling process for dispensaries. With efficient labeling processes, time spent creating, correcting, approving and printing labels will be reduced, getting product on the shelves faster.

How to Streamline Labeling from Seed to Sale in The Time of COVID-19

By Travis Wayne
No Comments

As if the cannabis industry doesn’t regularly go through enough rapid change, with COVID-19, cultivators, processors and dispensers of all sizes are trying to do more with less. Lower operational headcount and unpredictable production volume, along with a rapidly-changing supply chain – make eliminating manual steps a necessity. Labels include barcodes or various barcode symbologies to help companies manage inventory, identify products and ultimately ensure that the right products get to the right customers at the right time. By eliminating manual steps in your labeling environment, you can address these issues through automation, scalability, efficiency and accuracy: benefits that will last through the pandemic and position you well for the recovery period.

Automation

Automation of many kinds is being implemented from seed to sale including barcode label printing automation. Integration of labeling software and seed to sale traceability systems including METRC, BioTrack, Leaf Data and others enables streamlined barcode label data population and high-volume label printing to counteract the decreasing operational headcount and eliminate manual touchpoints.

Print automation can be defined as “a centralized technology that replaces the manual process of triggering a print job within a labeling environment.” Look for a labeling software solution that allows you to:

    • Completely automate your label printing process
    • Print to a greater number of printers
    • Initiate printing directly from any business system
Integrating your label printing system with your seed to sale traceability system can minimize errors, increase print speeds and maximize your ROI.

By integrating your label printing system with your seed to sale traceability system, you can expect to minimize errors, increase print speeds and maximize your ROI. Your business system already holds the variable data such as product names, license number, batch or lot codes, allergens, net quantity, cannabis facts, warning statements and more. By systematically sending this data to the right label template at the right time, labeling becomes an efficient and cost-effective process.

Scalability

One of the most important considerations for cannabis cultivators, processors and dispensers is to invest in solutions that can grow and pivot quickly as the business changes. Whether you are responding to temporary requirements or changes, or your business needs to scale up quickly to respond to a spike in demands as a result of COVID-19 or to prepare for coming out of this pandemic. Whatever your needs are, think about short-term and long-term goals for sustainable business solutions. Scalability includes:

Printing to a greater number of printers

As needs and automation requirements change, and your printer inventory has the possibility of increasing, make sure your labeling design software can be licensed per simultaneous user, with cost-effective, multi-user networking licenses. That way, you don’t run the risk of paying for more printers as you grow or going over budget with each additional printer.

Print documents and labels from the same application

If you use the same data for your documents (like order receipts, bills of materials or packing lists) and labels, moving document printing into your label design software makes sense logistically. An advanced label creation and integration software enables label and document printing standardization by allowing multiple database records to be on one file. That means when new documents or labels come into your database, your software can seamlessly integrate.

Efficiency and accuracy

In a time where responding to the changing market needs to happen very quickly, where costs are being scrutinized and when errors cannot happen – you need to set up your labeling environment to have high levels of accuracy and control. With increased accuracy you will reduce waste, eliminate returns due to mislabeled product, efficiently track product and gain more efficiencies that will save you money and time.

Cutting manual steps out of the process

Removing manual steps in your printing process is a sure-fire way to gain efficiency and accuracy in your labeling environment. Look for labeling software features that allow you to add variable data from a device to your labels automatically, which limits the human interaction with your labels and in turn helps minimize human errors. Other efficiencies include:

On-demand color labeling streamlines efficiency and accuracy across a wide variety of labeling needs.
  • Increased print speed within your labeling environment
  • Reduced label waste
  • Collection of data from several devices such as:
    • Scanners
    • Scales
    • Keyboards

On-demand color labeling

On-demand labeling is specifically helpful in the cannabis labeling world because of all the regulations you must comply with. Each state has its own regulations, which means each label throughout the cannabis supply chain must be compliant with whichever state they are located. With on-demand labeling, cannabis companies print labels as needed and make changes as they go without the risk of wasting obsolete pre-printed label stock. This is beneficial as pre-printed labels often have large minimum order quantities. On-demand labeling also helps companies maintain better control of their own branding and graphics.

With on-demand labeling, label information can be populated by using pre-approved label templates in order to save you time with the variations of cannabis labels. This gives you the ability to print the specific label you need without having to waste your pre-printed label stock, or spend time switching out your pre-printed label stock in your printer.

Cannabis cultivators, processors and dispensers are faced with many obstacles during these challenging times due to COVID-19 – ensuring workers are safe, keeping operations at 100% capacity with potentially fewer people, creating contingency plans that may be changing daily. In an environment that is changing very quickly, consider how labeling solutions can evolve. You may also need to lean more on your partners than you ever have in the past.