Oil-Resistant Asset Labels for HDPE Drums – with Sequential Numbers and QR Codes for Olleco
We were recently approached by Olleco, the UK’s leading supplier of sustainable oils and collector of waste cooking oil. Their team was looking for a long-lasting asset label that could survive repeated use on waste oil drums, no easy task when you're dealing with HDPE, oily surfaces, and a harsh industrial wash cycle.
HDPE (high-density polyethylene) is a low surface energy material, which means most standard vinyl stickers struggle to stick to it on a good day, let alone when you throw oil contamination into the mix. The stickers also needed to be cleaning resistant, withstanding both mechanical scrubbing and chemical washes multiple times.
Olleco’s initial brief was simple: find a label that could survive around six washes. They’d already tried a few options from other suppliers, with no luck, at this stage, they’d have been happy with something that just stuck at all!
At Mobad, we believe in doing it right, so we started by carefully selecting and testing a range of materials specifically designed for low surface energy plastics like HDPE. We sent over a series of blank samples for real-world testing on their drums. Some of the ‘obvious’ vinyl options failed straight away – which just goes to show how important rigorous testing is when choosing the right material for the job.
Eventually, we identified a specialist film that adhered well to the HDPE surface, even when exposed to oil. That success led to the next challenge: would it still hold up once printed?
Olleco sent over their artwork, and we produced printed samples using our high-durability sticker printing setup. These were then put through their wash process. And we waited.
The results? Well, they blew the brief out of the water, some of the stickers survived over 40 washes – we were genuinely buzzing when we got that phone call. Not only had we found a solution that worked, we had found one that lasted.
Asset labels with sequential numbers and QR codes
The next part of the job was all about precision and scale. Olleco needed 10,000 individually numbered asset labels, each with a unique QR code that links to their own internal software.
We’ve got the tech and expertise to handle this in-house – variable data printing is something we do regularly – so we created a workflow that allowed us to generate, print, and finish every unique label with Olleco’s brand colours, keeping everything on-point from start to finish.
The final delivery? Ten thousand oil-resistant, sequentially numbered asset labels, all rigorously tested, colour matched, and neatly palletised for delivery to four Olleco locations across the UK.
This isn’t the kind of job that just anyone can do. Getting stickers to work on low surface energy materials like HDPE – especially in oil-heavy environments – takes the right combination of experience, equipment, and the willingness to test thoroughly until it’s right.
At Mobad, we don’t just print labels – we solve sticker problems!
