Introduction
With more than thirty years of experience in poultry farming, Grupo CAC is dedicated to innovation and quality. The company produces Matinados eggs, a trusted brand, with a reputation for excellence. To guarantee that every egg meets the highest standards, Grupo CAC adhere to strict quality assurance processing, utilising Domino's coding and marking technologies, for ensuring traceability and compliance, without compromising on operational efficiency.
About Grupo CAC
Founded over 30 years ago, as a legal cooperative with 13 producers and a workforce of 120,000 laying hens, today Grupo CAC manages every aspect of egg production – from breeding farms to distribution. With a commitment to quality, sustainability, and innovation, Grupo CAC prioritises the health and happiness of its hens, resulting in superior eggs for consumers.
Learn more about Grupo CAC here https://grupocac.pt/
Fast facts
Grupo CAC is one of Portugal’s largest egg producers, managing:
- 3,400,000 laying hens on 65 farms across 25 municipalities in Portugal.
- 48 egg-processing facilities.
- Four breeding systems: organic, free-range, barn, and cage systems.
- Two cutting-edge feed factories for optimal hen nutrition.
- Five packaging centres across Portugal, ensuring efficient logistics and distribution.
The Challenge
In 2010, Grupo CAC recognised the need for a new coding and marking solution that would help to provide:
- Reliable and secure egg coding: Each egg needed printing with a Grupo CAC ‘egg code’, which serves as a passport, enabling full traceability from the point of sale right back to the production facility.
- Integration with existing systems: The solution had to seamlessly integrate with Grupo CAC’s Moba egg grading equipment, handling 3 million eggs daily.
- Compliance with global standards: The needed to meet EU standards, FDA regulations, and other international food safety guidelines.
Grupo CAC needed a partner who could provide a highly efficient and accurate solution for use across the entire value chain, providing product traceability with adherence to food safety standards, to promote and protect consumer trust.
“With Domino as our partner, we are confident in maintaining our position as a market leader in the European and international markets. Domino’s technology ensures secure and lasting identification across our entire value chain, making traceability and quality control effortless.”Manuel Sobreiro, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Grupo CAC
The Solution
After extensive research, Grupo CAC chose Domino as its coding and marking partner. Domino’s innovative solutions help to ensure that every egg is coded and traceable, meeting the regulatory and operational requirements of Grupo CAC.
Integration and Customisation
Domino’s coding solutions seamlessly integrate with Grupo CAC’s Moba egg grading systems, to provide precisely timed, high-speed, and high-quality coding of millions of eggs daily.
The coding process utilises Domino’s specially formulated inks, designed to work in harmony with Domino’s technology for supreme reliability, and compliant with EU, FDA, and other international regulations, to help ensure the safety of the final coded eggs.
"Domino’s technology is vital in our operations. From the moment eggs arrive for classification to their distribution, every second counts. The integration with Moba equipment and the accuracy of Domino’s solutions help us achieve the highest coding, hygiene, and safety standards."Tiago Ribeiro, Head of the Technical Department, Grupo CAC
Comprehensive Coverage:
The eggs are then packaged into boxes, which require printing with further traceability and consumer-related product information. The egg pack is the first thing consumers see when they go shopping, so print quality, speed and reliability are all critical.
Egg pack coding is managed by Domino’s Egg Pack Printing Traverser – one of the most powerful systems on the market. The solution provides high-quality, high-resolution coding of up to 80 packs per minute with just one printhead from Domino’s Gx350i thermal Inkjet printer. The traverser system is capable of handling many different egg box formats, including 2x3, 2x6, 3x4 and more.
The filled boxes of eggs are then packaged into shipping boxes and pallets – ready to ship out to grocery stores across Portugal. To ensure full traceability across the entire value chain each shipping boxes and pallets must also be labelled for distribution by Domino’s M230i-T4 case and pallet labellers.
"At Domino, we design tailored solutions for our clients. For Grupo CAC, we ensured every eggshell and its packaging were coded with precision, meeting all regulatory and traceability needs. It's a partnership built on trust and innovation."Miguel Castelo Branco, Account Manager, Domino Portugal
The Results
By adopting Domino’s solution, Grupo CAC has achieved:
- Enhanced Traceability: Today, each egg is fully traceable from point of sale back to the breeding farm, ensuring quick identification and resolution of potential issues.
- Operational Efficiency: The solution’s integration with Moba equipment helps to ensure that thousands of eggs can be coded with precision and speed, for maximum production line efficiency.
- Regulatory Compliance: All of Domino’s inks, consumables, and products comply with EU standards, FDA regulations, and other food safety requirements, ensuring global market readiness.
- Consumer Trust: Proper coding and labelling serve as a seal of quality, assuring consumers that they are purchasing a high-quality, trustworthy product that they can be confident bringing home to their families.
Conclusion
Grupo CAC’s journey reflects its unwavering commitment to quality and innovation. With Domino’s coding and marking solutions, Grupo CAC has reinforced its position as a market leader in egg production, delivering safe, traceable, and high-quality eggs to consumers across Portugal and beyond.
For businesses seeking reliable coding and marking solutions, Domino stands ready to help. Contact us today to discover how we can support your operations.