Do you have difficulty how to start the food printing business? Do you find it’s hard to choose the right food printing machine for your business? Do you know the difference between edible ink printers and direct to food printers? This ultimate guide will clear all your doubts & help you made the decision easily.
What are edible ink printers?
The edible ink printers are using regular office printers and install edible food inks. They’re mainly used to print on frosting sheet, icing paper, wafer paper. The application is very limited. It’s for cake decoration only.
What are direct to food printers?
As you can know from their name, they can print on any kinds of food surface. They’re mainly modified from Epson printers by adding a flexible tray. So they can print on different thickness of food items, such as macarons, cookies, marshmallows, chocolate, mints, even M&M’s. Any treats in your daily life can be printed your photos, logos, messages and so on.
What are the advantages & disadvantages?
The biggest advantage of edible ink printer is that its price is cheap. Take Canon printer for example, the whole package price is less than 300USD. It’s affordable for most of home bakers. The disadvantage is that it’s only used for cake decoration only. Also the maintenances are very difficult. It’s really a pain, because the rollers get jammed up with the sugar. The heads have to be soaked in cleaning solution every day to remove gunk.
The biggest advantage of direct to food printer is that it can print on all kinds of food items with different thickness. If you can dream it, you can print it. The maintenances are very easy. You just need to print a nozzle check every working day and you may need to do head cleaning if necessary. The disadvantage is that its price is almost 10 times more expensive than regular printer.
Which kind of printers to choose?
Since you already known the advantages & disadvantages between edible ink printer and direct to food printer, so you should know which printer to choose in your needs. In brief, if you only produce cakes only & have limited budget, then it’s best to choose edible ink printer at the beginning. If you want to print on all kinds of food treats, it’s better to choose a direct to food printer.