Articles

Alternative Stickering

Article in Citrograph, January 1997

Tri Citrus Pioneers Self-owned California Citrus Stickering

A global search for a Stickering machine that works and can be purchased instead of leased has paid off handsomely for Tri Citrus Inc, and orange packinghouse in Porterville, Calif.

Tri Citrus’ controller, Dennis Cohen, driven by a desire to buy Stickering machines instead of leasing them, searched the world over and found an Australian manufacturer that is more than happy to compete in the United States Stickering market.

The Hullabaloo centers on the rising demand by supermarkets for Price Look-Up stickers on various fruits to track produce movement inside their stores. The PLU stickers are read automatically at checkout stands, and aid store buyers in meeting demand with supply.

There was a lot of talk last season between the supermarkets and the buyers and first they didn’t want to pay us something to put on the stickers, then they agreed to pay us something, then they wanted stickers and didn’t want stickers,” said Cohen from inside the pristine packinghouse, where attention to detail is apparent. “And we were running our packline by how many stickers we had to use.”

As a controller, Cohen was clearly uncomfortable just talking about the time in the not-too-distant past when the demand to apply stickers – or withhold them – was the tail that shook the dog for how Tri Citrus ran fruit through its packline.

When PLU stickers on fruit was something of an anomaly, rather than an issue, a United States company, Sinclair, stepped up to fill the newly created niche and developed several models that use compressed air to blow the self-sticking stickers onto fruit. Boasting a strike rate of 98 percent, the Sinclair models have been, and continue to be, effective labelers.

But Cohen wasn’t satisfied with the terms he was offered, and at that time he had no easy alternative at hand to substitute for the Sinclair machines. For someone whose career purpose is to direct the economic lifeblood of a plant that handles a perishable commodity, Cohen was beside himself without a second option. “Their program is you cannot buy the machines, you can only lease the machines,” he said. “You must sign a contract to lease the machine a minimum of four years, and secondly you must buy a minimum quantity of labels, and you have to buy them from them. And you have to pay them to install the machine. Apparently, it is a good machine. It is a Rolls Royce machine.”

Cohen wasn’t satisfied with a Rolls Royce. He wanted something nearer to a Volvo. So about two years ago, from his office desk in Porterville, Calif., Cohen began letting his fingers roam along the keypads of his telephone, calling acquaintances world-wide, and thus starting what was to become a global quest for a Stickering machine that not only worked, but could be bought and owned. Driven by this vision, Cohen, a U.S. citizen who was raised in South Africa, traveled to packinghouses in South Africa and Spain.

“We found G.J. Dix and sons Pty. Ltd. Out of Renmark, Australia,” he said, somewhat triumphant. “This company had been in existence for many years. They manufacture a machine that is sold internationally under the names the Dix machine and the TKO machine. In the United States it was marketed using the name Pro Label.”

Appropriately enough, Cohen’s gusher-Pro Label Inc. – is a G.J. Dix distributor based in Dallas, Texas.

By November 1995, he had purchased 20 of these holy grails, one for each lane, and Tri Citrus Inc. became the first packinghouse in California to install them. “We can label every size,” he said.

His discovery raised more than the eyebrows of fellow packinghouse operators. It raised the bar by creating a competitive market in California for Stickering machines, where the game had previously been won by default.

“We talked to people in South Africa, where it is being used extensively in the citrus and apple industries,” Cohen said. “And in Washington, in the Yakima area, on apples. So I had s comfort that is was used in the United States, and talked to people internationally who were using both machines in their plants, so I had a good source for comparatives.”

Obviously, Cohen isn’t one to make light of comparative shopping, and he also has a penchant for going the extra mile when he finds quality service at a bargain price. For instance, the tailor’s shop where he has his trousers adjusted is in Fresno Calif., a 150-mile round-trip trek from the packinghouse in Porterville.

The president of Tri Citrus, Jay Telles, trusted Cohen’s judgment and authorized the purchase of Pro Label’s machines at $3 000 each.

“We’ve saved close to 50 percent with this,” said Telles. “Dennis says 40 percent, but it’s actually closer to 50 percent.” Telles was comparing the actual cost of the Pro Label stickers after a one-year run with navels and Valencias, compared to what they said was the cost projected by Sinclair representatives for buying their stickers.

“The stickers come from Pro Label,” added Cohen. “You can buy them anywhere, but they have a good label, and we have no locked-in agreement.”

The stickers come in rolls of 25,000, and are loaded onto the Pro Label machines the same way a reel of film is loaded onto a projector. The cost is less than $1 per thousand.

The reported strike rate of 98 percent for the Pro Label machines, too, applies to running 480 pieces of fruit per minute, Cohen said. “The strike rate is pretty much the same as the Sinclair, but I’m not sure about the volume. All I can say is we did not slow down our packing house, and that was a strong concern of mine,” he said.

“With the burden being placed on the packer to label more of their fruit, a reliable, effective, lower-cost alternative is a viable option,” Cohen said. “It benefits our growers who are our customers, and our buyers who sometimes ask for things but aren’t willing to pay for them.”

Tri Citrus Inc. is a member of Central California Orange Growers, a cooperative association that represents about 30 percent of the industry.