Researchers analyzing data from a 2005-06 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, found that nearly 62% of respondents said they read the nutrition facts labels before making a food purchase. Further, nearly 52% examine the list of ingredients, 47% pay attention to the serving size and nearly 44% review health claims at least some of the time when deciding which food product to purchase.

There were significant health differences between food label readers and non-readers. Researchers of the study stated that people who took the time to read the food labels had dramatic increases in their intake of total calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and dietary fibers / sugars.

“If the food label is to have a greater public health impact, rates of use will likely need to be increased among U.S. adults,” said study author Nicholas J. Ollberding, a professor in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, at Columbia University.

“Low rates of label use also suggest that food labels may need to be modified,” Ollberding added. Suggested changes to the current label could include bolding calorie information, reporting the total nutrient intake for foods likely to be consumed in a single sitting, and using more intuitive labeling techniques such as the use of red, yellow and green inks on the label itself.

So, what does all this mean to those of us in the label industry or our customers – actual purchasers of food product labels? Nothing specific just yet. There are no mandated changes for requirements on food / nutrition labels at this specific time. But, they may be coming at some point down the road. We will do our best to keep you posted as to changes in FDA requirements. In the mean time, however, please feel free to visit the food labels page of our site for a listing of products we offer and more information.

And, if you’d like even more info on this subject, please visit the FDA’s website…
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm094536.htm

Have a question or comment about food or nutrition facts labels? Please leave your comment below and we will get back to you with a personal response.

Thank you,

Mark Trumper
CEO – MaverickLabel.Com

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So, what is a brand, you might ask?  And, how do you know if you have one?  Well, every company has a brand.  But, truth be told, you don’t always own your own brand.  Your brand is really the perception of your business and is controlled by your customers, products, vendors, customer service agents, and yes – even your company labels.

Your Image Is Your Brand

Scary thought, I know.  But, everything about your company is indeed your “brand.”  Many companies carefully choose their employees, provide customer service training, spend lots of money on their stationery and business cards, and have a large marketing budget.  But, many of these same companies often overlook an item that is seen by customers who order a product, have something delivered, or receive packages from these companies – the label!

That’s where MaverickLabel.Com can help.  We specialize in providing any type of label imaginable.  In business since 1994, MaverickLabel.Com provides a secure online environment for both designing and ordering labels of all types.  We make it easy for you to find the exact label you’re looking for with our Uber Quoter and our customer service team is available to assist you place your label order.

So, next time you’re thinking about your brand identity, consider enhancing your brand’s image with quality, professional labels from MaverickLabel.Com.

Mark Trumper
CEO
MaverickLabel.Com

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After a lengthy research and testing period, we have today officially added a new, Earth friendly label material – NatureFlex™ biodegradable label films – to our extensive label stock selection.

Perfectly suited for products like food and beverage labeling, as well as high-impact nutraceutical and pharmacy product packaging, NatureFlex™ label films are made of regenerated cellulose, which starts as wood pulp.  NatureFlex™ has been proven to fully biodegrade in as little as 16 weeks – making this a truly environmentally conscious label material.

MaverickLabel.Com® proudly offers the NatureFlex™ label film in 1.8 mil White and Clear choices on many of our most popular products, including our process color labels.

To ensure MaverickLabel.Com® customers would be completely satisfied with this new label stock material, we spent countless hours over several months performing both indoor and outdoor quality tests.  And, the results of these tests were fantastic.  Labels printed on NatureFlex™ stock both looked great and had tremendous durability.

We are constantly striving to do our part to be more Earth sensitive and this product is a perfect fit to our existing label stock material choices.

Find more details about NatureFlex™ label stock at our Process Color Labels product page…
http://www.mavericklabel.com/process_color.html

Mark Trumper, CEO
MaverickLabel.Com®
800.537.8816

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Even in these barren economic times, the cost of purchasing a new ink jet printer is amazingly low. Printer manufacturers often sell these printers below cost, which sounds like an awfully bad deal for printer manufacturers. Sounds like, but isn’t. Believe it or not, this type of sales logic dates back over a hundred years to a man named King.

King C. Gillette, whose last name now adorns items in men’s grooming kits around the world, stumbled upon the idea of the disposable razor when he was working as a traveling salesman in the late 1890s. His plan was to craft a razor handle of good quality, and to sell the handle at a small loss. Doing so would encourage users to keep buying replacement blades, which could be sold at a profit, in order to create customers who returned on a regular basis.

This type of sales strategy, sell a loss leader to promote regular, more profitable sales became known as the Razor and Blades business model, and has been employed numerous times since its inception. When Standard Oil wanted to move into China, they gave away 8 million kerosene lamps in order to create a market for the lamps’ oil. Electronics manufacturer Apple has stated that it doesn’t make much money from iPod sales, instead profits are derived from its iTunes Store. And, of course, there are printer companies, whose use of this tactic is notorious.

A brand new ink jet printer can be purchased from most big box stores for less than $50, setting an incredibly low bar for an average quality consumer color printer. However, replacing the cartridges for that printer will cost the consumer almost as much as the printer itself, and sometimes more.

And therein lies the rub. At consumer pricing, the ink for printers can cost up to $8000 per gallon, making it one of the most costly liquids known to man. This price scales down to make printing relatively affordable for small operations like home users and students. However, as business owners can quickly find out, when printing things like cheap color labels and business cards on anywhere near a regular basis, the cost of ink can really add up. This type of profit plan makes a do-it-yourself solution only feasible when printing is done infrequently at best.

The problem with the Razor and the Blades strategy is that scaling does not pass economic benefits to the consumer. During good economic times, the squeeze of the Razor and Blade business plans is tough, but during a recession, it can be brutal. The problem becomes not how to make the most in a loss leader economy, but rather how to escape it.

The obvious solution is to try and capitalize on a wholesale economy, where sellers lower their profit margins in exchange for a guarantee of more sales. With printer ink, there is obviously a great bit of space for the prices to fall. But to make the most of those savings, a printer has to buy in very large quantities, which puts a small business an economic position that is worse than the current one.

The solution is to allow someone else to shoulder the bulk of the wholesale burden by relying on a third party for printing. The thought of making use of an outside printer might seem foreign, but it provides a great deal of advantages. Offloading your printing means that you’re only going to be paying for the ink you use, and thus you’ll be saving some money.

Moving some of your printing to a third party means that you’ll need to consider what you’ll print, as you can’t simply offload everything. Here is where a little knowledge of knowing your printing habits comes in handy. By identifying what you print over and over again on regular basis, things like business cards, labels, and forms, allows you to outsource those printing jobs. True, you’ll still need to do some printing on your own, but with careful planning and working with a the printer, you can hopefully drop the total amount of printing you do on your own to a manageable level and land in a more comfortable section of the Razor and Blade business model.

MaverickLabel.com can help you reduce your label printing costs by printing your shipping labels. Still need inkjet labels?

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The line between online content and the offline world is quickly eroding. For years it has been common place to include a web address on marketing materials, package wrappers, and signage, but these addresses required the viewer to maintain an interest in a company or website from the point of discovery to they reach a computer, or to peck out an address on a cell phone. This gap in access between discovery and information, allows for any number of distractions to swoop in and siphon off a customer who might be fence sitting on a product. A unique combination of several technologies is doing what it can to erase this gap. That practice, already widespread in Japan, is set to make the jump to the United States in the near future.

The concept is called “mobile tagging” and it typically involves a two-dimensional barcode, a camera phone, and a webpage created specifically for mobile phone browsers.

The two-dimensional barcode is not necessarily a new invention, having been created in both the United States and Japan almost simultaneously in the mid-1990s. The result is a barcode that makes use of blots, or boxes, or dots rather than simple vertical lines. These barcodes are able to encode a great deal of data – an upper limit of 4000 or so characters compared to the twenty or so of a traditional barcode. The ability to pack that much data into such a tiny spot has turned the barcode from a simple method of tracking into a means to relay human-meaningful information.

The cell phone isn’t new either. However, the wide scale proliferation of mobile phones was paired by the addition of inexpensive digital cameras and access to the mobile internet. With the aide of relatively simple programs, mobile phones could learn to read matrix barcodes, and if the barcode contained a web address, the mobile phone could access the website right then. The gap between discovery and access was stopped.

The concept itself seems rather simple. However, it’s the applications that hold a great deal of potential. The matrix barcode, when used in mobile tagging, has several advantages over the written web address.

First, and perhaps foremost, the viewer does not know exactly what to expect when they view a matrix barcode without a camera which can read it. Sure, the viewer can garner some basic assumptions from context clues, but where the code points to is actually a mystery. To capitalize on the mystery, it is common for two-dimensional barcodes to be served without context clues on plain white billboards. For a viewer, the need to understand, the need to justify such a massive barcode, is prompt enough actively respond to the tag, pull out a cell phone and snap a photo. At that point, the website is a click away and the viewer has done a great deal of the leg work in become an actual consumer.

Another advantage of using a two-dimensional barcode over a printed web address: long and specific addresses are preferred rather than forbidden. Customers engaging in mobile tagging can be directed to specific landing pages, tailored not only for a mobile device, but also based on geo-location. When a unique two-dimensional barcode is created based on the location in which it will be displayed, or to match the content it is paired with, the end result is targeted information that is greatly more relevant to the viewer. The more relevant the content, the greater the chance of turning a visitor into a customer.

Not all two-dimensional barcodes are simply marketing tools, though. Nor do they have to contain a simple web address. In Japan, matrix barcodes have replaced nutritional labels on food packages – redirecting the viewer to a mobile webpage that contains that information instead. Another common use is location-specific information, which is particularly popular in the tourism industry. A two-dimensional barcode next to a work of art or historic building can direct visitors to information that is far too detailed and lengthy to fit on a sign.

In the end, the variety of uses for two-dimensional barcodes is largely limited only by the imagination of the creator. Much as the internet is freeing ideas and connecting individuals, the question one should be asking about mobile tagging is “How could the internet help my situation if it weren’t bound to a computer?” After all, this isn’t a technology that’s bound solely to Japan. Currently in Apple’s App store, there are no fewer than three mobile tagging programs for the device. Mobile tagging is coming.

Visit MaverickLabel.com for your barcode labels. Or you can read our 2-d barcode label below.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 29, 2008 – Edmonds, Washington – MaverickLabel.Com^®, leading pioneer of label products via the Internet, today announced the launch of a new product line – custom printed wine bottle labels.

“Maverick’s new wine label printing program is truly unique and the most comprehensive system available today,” said Mark Trumper, MaverickLabel.Com^® CEO.  “It is the only program on the Internet where you can get a complete, instant quote for custom printed wine bottle labels.  Our wine label ordering system is designer friendly, fast, and easy to use,” he went on to say.

Custom printed wine labels are available in dozens of standard sizing options, with free downloadable templates.  Alternatively, customers can also order wine labels in any custom size simply by entering their width and height requirements.  Label material choices are extensive and include popular selections such as semi gloss, clear on clear, matte litho, gold and silver foils, and others.  Face and back labels are available on the same order, alternating on the roll.

“We’ve spent considerable time researching and creating this new wine label product offering, and we’re very excited about the final product,” Mr. Trumper added.  “We worked directly with personnel from several vineyards and wine estate houses to ensure we covered the needs of the wine labeling industry and to comply with wine labeling laws and requirements.”

Custom printed wine bottle labels from MaverickLabel.Com^® are available in quantities as low as 250 and include varietal data options for estate / lot numbering.  All wine label orders receive free digital web proofs within 24 hours and hard-copy digital color proofs within two days, via overnight carrier.  A production proof, printed on the actual label stock, is available for a small fee.

Find more details about the full product offering here:

http://www.mavericklabel.com/products/wine-label-quoter.php

MaverickLabel.Com^® offers hundreds of label products, in a secure online environment. In addition, the company has one of the most comprehensive ordering systems available, including online proofing and design online for most items.

# # # #

For more information:

Mark Trumper, CEO

MaverickLabel.Com^®

800.537.8816

marktrumper@mavericklabel.com

http://www.mavericklabel.com/

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With that in mind please read the snippet below about the beer label that was banned for showing Santa’s butt. If you life what you read, please read the entire article by clicking here: Beer Labels, the Constitution, and a Fight over Santa Claus.

Winter is an important time for micro- and craft-brewers. The colder months mean that the heavier beers sell better, and beer aficionados love their holiday-themed beverages. The heavy ales and porters — beers that warm the drinker — lead to sales spikes in the winter. For one of their special holiday beers, Ridgeway brewers had Gary Lippencourt paint them a Santa.

Lippencourt painted a warm image of Claus; the jolly man is sitting atop a large beer barrel (or “butt” in industry lingo) with his back to the viewer, a stein in one hand, and his famous list in the other. The painting wasn’t meant to cause controversy. No, it was meant to be a clever visual pun, perhaps bringing a chuckle, and hopefully sell some beer. Read on…

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After several lost putters, sand wedges, and drivers – I decided it was time to do something about my problem. So, I searched the Internet for golf club identification. And, that’s when I found MaverickLabel.Com’s Golf Club & Sports ID Labels web site. They have a really simple ordering process which allows you to create your own identification label right there on their site. You simply type-in your name and phone number and you’re literally done in less than two minutes. The labels look fantastic and they don’t stand out like a sore thumb on your golf clubs. And, to top off the deal, MaverickLabel.Com offers free shipping on this product!

I had been thinking of purchasing an expensive set of Ping golf clubs, but was very reluctant due to my carelessness. But, with my new ID labels in hand – I went ahead and bought the new Ping clubs for an upcoming business trip to Florida. I put the great looking labels on each of my clubs with confidence and took them with me to Orlando the next week.

I loved the new clubs and was having a great round of golf with my new business associates. Everything was going great until I got to the 11th hole. I was about 75 yards from the green, in a bit of rough grass. So, I began digging through my bag to find my pitching wedge. And, to no real surprise… It was not in my bag! I couldn’t believe it. I had left the club at another hole – again! I finished the hole with my 9 Iron and we then went back a few holes, asking the golfers behind us if they had seen my club. But, unfortunately for me, none of them had.

To make a long story short, we finished the round without my pitching wedge and waited at the clubhouse for a couple of hours to see if anyone had found the club with no luck. I continued to call the golf course for a few days after my trip, but it was never turned in.

This might be the end of this story, but then, about two weeks later… The course manager called my cell phone to let me know that their grounds keeper had found my club in a tall patch of grass on the 4th hole! He mailed my club back to me and I had it safely back in my bag two days later. And, it was all thanks to the ID label I had put on each of my new clubs. Needless to say, I’m very glad I made that purchase from MaverickLabel.Com.

Kevin
Columbus, Ohio

Sincerely,
Mark Trumper
MaverickLabel.Com CEO

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We offer several different custom label stocks, each of which can help to create a unique and impressive product label, packaging label, or promotional label. These custom label stocks can add special effects to the label, making it truly one-of-a-kind. These special effects stocks come in several different varieties, including: 3D / raised, sparkling, shiny, and more. And, there’s an added bonus… Some of these material choices can be used to add a security element to your label / packaging.

Below is a brief description of some popular label stock choices for creating an eye-catching, distinctive label…

Domed Label Stock: Domed labels are made with a thick, yet crystal-clear, polyurethane dome, which is laid over the printed label. This dome protects the printing and adds approximately 1/4 inch of thickness to the label – giving it a three-dimensional (3D) appearance. And, Domed Labels are weather resistant. More About Dome Labels

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Hologram Label Material: Hologram label stock is excellent for making your label stand out – and has the added bonus of being used as a means of security, product authentication, and protection against counterfeiting. Hologram label material adds impact and draws attention to your design. More About Hologram Labels

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Clear Labels:
Clear labels can be used in many different ways. Using a clear label stock can be especially appealing for use as product labeling on glass bottles, jars, etc., as it can be used in conjunction with the coloring of the product in the container. MaverickLabel.Com offers clear labels printed on tough, crystal clear polyester with permanent adhesive – as well as a non-adhesive, static-cling material for use on windows.

Die Cut Shapes and Sizes: Die cut labels offer a fantastic opportunity for you to create a truly unique label. You can choose from an extensive line of existing shapes and sizes – or you can choose to have a die created in your own design’s shape. Die cut labels from MaverickLabel.Com are available in dozens of styles and option choices, including: core sizes, indoor / outdoor label materials, clear or colored label stocks, and literally dozens of shape choices. More About Process Color Labels with Special Die Shapes

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Foil / Embossed Label Stock: Foil and embossed label stocks add incredible appeal to your label. Foil / embossed labels from MaverickLabel.Com are printed on an extra shiny, metalized label material available in nine foil color choices. (Silver and gold are the most popular choices, but black, purple, red, dark blue, teal and other foil stocks are also available.) Embossed labels and seals make a truly lasting impression, with a special stamping process, which can take your label design to the next level. Custom printed foil and embossed labels are ideal for anniversaries, weddings, as well as any retail application in which you’d like your label to stand out from the crowd. More About Foil and Embossed Labels

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No matter your reason for using them, custom label stocks can and do add impact and draw attention to your label design. So, next time you’re looking to create a unique, innovative label – consider using one of the custom stocks above. Or, feel free to contact us for advice or assistance.

Mark Trumper
MaverickLabel.Com – CEO

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In the second article we talk about the texture of the surfaces and how that affects the strength of the bond, among other things. You can read more about that here.

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