Labelexpo 2023 reaffirms its significance!

Labelexpo 2023 reaffirms its significance!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder! There was a general perception that the impact of a fierce pandemic, the Finnish Paper Mills strike, Ukraine war, shortages and rising raw material prices, difficult logistics and increased travel costs have left the market sentiments bruised. There was strong narrative doing the rounds in the labels industry that Labelexpo Europe 2023 at Brussels will lose its sheen and may not deliver the desired results. Contrary to all perceptions the show was a huge success. The numbers may have been slightly lower than the previous years, but the quality of turnout brought cheer to the faces of exhibitors. The proof of that is given by the reported rebook rate for the next edition of this important event by Tarsus, announced at a whopping 96%! Labelexpo Europe 2023 was spread over 9 halls covering 35889 square meters. 36588 visitors flocked to the show, coming from 138 countries. Most stands reported robust enquiries or sales from established and serious printers from around the world. Though the aisles were not as crowded as in previous shows, the stands were busy. That is exactly what exhibitors expect from a globally renowned show. I cite a personal experience, I had to conduct an important meeting with one of our company’s several principals. Despite visiting their stand on all days at various times, the concerned person was busy with clients, finally I had to ask him to come to another meeting point other than his stand, so that we could discuss our project in peace. Such was the deliverance of Labelexpo 2023.

The Indian presence; The Indian labels and packaging industry has been continuously growing at steady pace to reach a position of stability and strength. The Indian visitors to labelexpo have also transformed. Earlier we saw many of those who mixed their visit with tourism, so the interest was diluted, and the enquiries lacked seriousness. This trend is seen as changing, given the increased travel costs and technologies evolving in different packaging segments, the smaller printers prefer to visit the domestic editions of Labelexpo. 

In 2005, my company was the only one from India to exhibit at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, over years the number of Indian exhibitors has been growing. Indian producers of materials, machines and tooling have improved in quality to match global levels and offer their products in the international marketplace. 

From just the one exhibitor from India displaying labelstock in 2005 they reached 14 exhibitors in 2017, and in 2023 the number of Indian exhibitors grew to 26. This number included several label press manufacturers, manufacturers of coaters and laminators, raw material suppliers, tooling manufacturers, etc. In fact, registering their presence in all segments of label manufacturing. As for the visitors, it is an even more interesting result. In 2019 2% of the total of 37903 visitors were from India.

This works out to over 750 visitors. This figure has swelled! In Labelexpo Europe 2023. Indian visitors were 3.9% of the total of 36588 visitors and this works out to over 1400 visitors, almost double the number. We can imagine the dynamism and steady growth of “make in India” concept. The Indians are now quick learners who visit these shows and become adapters of global technologies to produce and offer to the world.

Diverse technologies displayed: Labelexpo global series was in the initial stages aimed at growth of stickers that had evolved as self-adhesive labels. The earliest web label presses were largely coming from eastern part of the World as 4 or 5-inch-wide flatbed letterpress machines for printing labels in roll form to eventually transform with development of label applicators, it led to automation in packaging lines.

Development and introduction of rotary flexographic label presses brought a paradigm shift as it provided better speed of printing.

Since the web width in the earliest stages was small, the industry eventually started being referred to as narrow web label industry. The rest is history. With evolution and development of prepress printing speeds and quality also improved making the technology widely acceptable. Printing widths increased to 10 inches or 250 mm and had for quite some time settled at 330mm.

Speeds that were just 5 or 6 meters per minute in the beginning with the flatbed presses, have reached up to 200 meters per minute and more. The narrow web label industry flourished and kept growing. With time label technologies have undergone a sea change. What was wet glue labels, transformed into self-adhesive labels but later the label grew towards various tangents. The label users started adopting a wide variety that includes wraparound labels, shrink sleeves, Inmold labels, heat transfer labels and many more. In the initial stages of transformation large multinational FMCG companies became users of wrap-around labels and shrink sleeves, because of the large volume they required, these became the product of the wide web rotogravure printing industry. With market changes happening, the need of smaller manufacturers and demand for short runs by marketing professionals, these diverse segments also became evident in the offerings of narrow web industry. 

The narrow started growing wider still, printing and converting evolved exponentially and became suppliers of not only to wide spectrum of labels but also flexible packaging, Lami-tubes and folding cartons. The flexo presses also transformed to be hybrid ones  employing combination of flexo, offset, gravure, screen and digital, etc.

At Labelexpo Europe 2023, one could witness displayed, a merger and combination of different printing technologies to produce excellence in print of labels and packaging. This was substantially exhibited by industry stalwarts like Gallus, Omet, Nilpeter, Mark Andy, Bobst, Weigang, Lombardy, etc. who displayed their finest web printing and converting equipment. It is interesting that waste reduction and sustainable manufacturing practices to reduce carbon footprint are becoming imperative for all responsible machine builders.

Overview: Material suppliers like Avery Dennison, UPM Raflatac and Fedrigoni displayed their vast ranges of labelstocks with an evident effort towards sustainability. Many did talk of linerless and the initial developments they have made but the actual linerless self-adhesive label for mass usage is still a far cry. 

As mentioned before, from the just one Indian Labelstock producer in 2005, there were five Indian labelstock producers at the show, Jindal SMI, SticOn papers, MLJ, Shree Lamipack and Varshil. Looking at the number of visitors on stands it was clear that the focus of label fraternity is shifting from commodities to creativity, innovation and sustainability. While all labelstock companies had a steady flow of visitors, the Fedrigoni stand that offered specialty textured and decorative materials was extremely busy. 

A similar situation was observed at the Cartes stand whose displayed equipment offered amazing embellishments with various combinations of digital jet screen varnishing and printing, screen printing, laser die-cutting etc. The electronic integration in labels is another field that attracted the attention of forward-thinking printing companies. RFID insertion options for labels and packaging were displayed by many, some of whom include  Avery Dennison, Beontag, Muhlbauer, Delta Modtech, etc. Another aspect witnessed is the growing number of finishing equipment manufacturers, which clearly indicates the need for printing companies to produce more with less. The concept of printing at full machine speeds on their expensive presses and finishing offline makes available more time on their main printing presses. The futuristic digital printing equipment continues to evolve indicating it to become a dominant label printing technology in future, given the wider widths and faster speeds.

The hall number 8 with exhibitors led by HP, offered a vast variety of digital printing equipment. The increased display of finishing or digital finishing machines is also indicative of the increasing importance of digital printing, which in recent times has become a necessity for prosperous label printers. Running short runs needs offline finishing. else the digital presses with inline finishing will not only be expensive but will not be able to deliver production to their full capacity due to short runs and quick changeovers.

One thing that has become evident at Labelexpo Europe 2023 is that the narrow web label industry continues to go wider and evolve, increasing its footprints in other segments of packaging and it would not be out of place to mention that soon it  will be referred to as “Web label and package converting industry.”

The end of show was a nostalgic moment, people bidding farewell to Labelexpo in Brussel where so many wonderful memories, stories of success and friendships had been scripted. The label fraternity now looks forward to making another beginning with Labelexpo Europe 2025 in Barcelona, Spain.

Pictures of my walk through Labelexpo 2023 and some of the events on the sidelines;

World Label Awards Judging:

One day before Labelexpo opened, the judging for label awards was held.

Same afternoon, L9 meeting was held, followed by L9-Dinner

The global Label awards evening!

On Wednesday 13th September 2023, fairwell dinner for Label Guru Mike Fairley was held

My Walk through!

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi India September 2023

Selecting Digital Label Printing technology

Selecting Digital Label Printing technology

“Change is the only constant in life.” This is an age old saying and it is so true! As we look back in time that has gone by, the evolution in technologies that impact our life is amazing and for the new generations it is difficult to imagine the path traversed by elders.

For example, look at the development in telephony and communications; there was a time when, to get a telephone we had to make a lengthy application with documents plus a hefty deposit and then wait for 3 years to get a telephone. For dialing national or international numbers one had to book a call and experience endless wait to be connected for a 3 minute call. Those who did not have telephone connections had to visit a post office to call relatives in other cities, book a call and wait for their turn until the operator tried to connect them for a call that they had to pre-declare the duration as 3 minutes or 6 minutes. Mobiles have transformed life and we have instant voice and video communication capabilities 24X7 with multiple phones in our pockets. The mobile is perhaps the most impactful technology experienced by us in life so far. In a somewhat similar manner, printing technologies have evolved over hundreds of years to bring changes enabling perfection and colourful meaning to all printed products. A technology that began with carving stone blocks, apply colours and transferring images, evolved to using wooden blocks, metal type sets, letterpress printing, screen Printing to offset printing, a technology that was widely adopted and spread across the world as the most preferred print process. Also evolved flexographic and rotogravure printing. All these technologies had a costly pre-press and make-ready process as also the cost of artworks, plates, print cylinders, etc.

The 1970s saw the beginning of an era that would continue to impact the print industry in a totally different tangent, the digital printing! The technology enabled printing with a command from a computer with press of a button without much of processes that were needed in conventional printing.

It is so much like the changes in mobile phone technology coming about. By 1993 the digital printing technology developed such that the first commercial digital printing press named “Indigo” was produced by Benny Landa in his company with the same name. This transformed the printing world; one could now print personalized short run jobs straight from computer. In 2000-2001, the company Indigo was acquired by Hewlett Packard (HP) and at the time of acquisition Landa had said, “Our vision has always been to lead the printing industry into the digital era and to see Indigo technology pervade the commercial market. Now, a part of HP, that goal is in sight.” Rightly so, the market of digital printing has been registering robust growth. Digital printing technology has been developed by various press manufacturers and is being widely adopted with innovative indulgence.  Label manufacturing is an integral part of print and has also been witnessing growth both in terms of total market as well as in Digital printing of labels. The global market for label printing has been growing steadily in recent times, valuing at $36.98 billion in 2017. As per Smithers Pira the total market of labels is likely to cross 49.9 Billion USD by 2024. According to Finat; 2017 was the first year that, with nearly 300 digital press installations, the volume of newly added digital label presses surpassed that of new conventional label press installed volumes.

While label printers in the western world have been early investors in digital label printing presses yet the Indian printers have been skeptical about the need for this investment in the Indian label production scenario.

The different types of technologies available leave the printers in a confusion as to what is the most appropriate technology that they should invest in. Unlike other conventional printing processes evolution of digital printing has moved into different technical ways of achieving the same goal which is computer to print.
Largely available technologies offered by various manufacturers of digital equipment are as follows;
1.       Dry toner based

2.       Liquid toner based

3.       Inkjet

4.       UV Inkjet

While looking at the selection of digital print process one also needs to decide the finishing of the labels whether they wish to do this inline or offline. Every different short run job maybe of varying shape requiring frequent stops and change of cutting dies.

This substantially reduces press running time and impacts profitability adversely. In such a case it is advisable to finish the labels offline, one offline equipment can free up printing time of multiple presses. Laser die cutting is another option whereby it can handle multiple and frequent job changes without the need for additional dies and machine stoppages, but this calls for a much higher investment in the finishing equipment.  Additionally, one needs to decide with digital, what dpi resolution to go for; does the work need a white ink in one of the printing heads; does the press have an extended color gamut. Press running speeds of all the digital label press technologies vary quite considerably. The printing speed with many short-run job changes is also an important factor for consideration.
Dry Toner based process:

This process is an evolution of the earliest photocopying process known as Xerography invented by Chester Carlson founder of Xerox and converted as Laser printer by Gary Keith Starkweather in 1970s which transformed to digital printing with laser printers also called electrostatic digital printing as we have seen in our offices.

In a laser printer a laser beam runs over an electrically charged drum preparing an electrical image carrying charged areas.  The drum is a cylinder coated with a material that becomes conductive when exposed to light or laser beam. Areas that are not exposed have a high resistance which allows these areas to hold the electrostatic charge necessary for the process. The image then collects the toner and transfers the image to a paper or substrate that is then heated to fuse the image on to it. In traditional xerography the image is formed by reflecting light off an existing document onto the exposed drum which then picks up the toner and transfers the image. Dry toners consist of pigments embedded inside polymer beads. The fusing phase of the electrophotographic process melts the polymer beads to the surface of the paper. These can print on both coated and noncoated papers. Image quality is a complex issue, determined by a combination of hardware, software, consumables and processes. Dry toner is not absorbed by the substrate, it always achieves an optimal optical density as all the ink transferred is adhering on surface. The particle size of the toner has been reduced over the years to achieve fine print results and most equipment are offering prints of 1200 DPI for solids and blends with good color depth and subtle contrasts, ideal to reproduce vibrant images.
Major brands offering dry toner based digital label presses are Xeikon and Konica Minolta.
Liquid Toner based process

Liquid toners also use pigments in polymer beads, but they are dispersed in oil that evaporates during fusing process. Liquid toners are used in digital presses that are typically used for commercial printing on a wide range of coated papers.

Benny Landa an Israeli inventor mentioned above, having to his credit 800 patents produced the first Indigo digital printing press in the early 1990s using liquid toners in a process that was called liquid electrophotography or LEP in his company established in 1977. Landa came to be known as the father of digital printing. The liquid toner used by HP came to be known as ElectroInk, that combines the advantages of electronic printing with the qualities of liquid ink. ElectroInk contains charged pigmented particles in a liquid carrier. The image is created with electrophotographic process on the drum directly from digital data, avoiding the use of any analogue intermediate media. It starts with digitally created pages or print elements containing text, layouts or images. HP Indigo uses a blanket in between to transfer ink from the drum to media. The blanket is heated, melting and blending the ElectroInk particles into a smooth film. This produces an image that is completely defined on the blanket and transferred to the substrate by direct contact. For this reason, it is also referred to as offset digital printing.

Major brand using liquid toner based digital printing process: HP
Inkjet Printing:

Inkjet printing is the oldest of technologies in non-contact printing evolving into digital colour printing commercially. Existing together there are two main inkjet technologies i.e. Continuous Inkjet (CIJ) and drop-on-demand (DOD).

The CIJ method has been in use for ages in which a high-pressure pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a gun body and a microscopic nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets. These droplets are subjected to a varying electrostatic field and then these charged droplets pass through another electrostatic field to deflect them and form characters. The process can be understood by the image reproduced from Wikipedia. The Drop-on-demand (DOD) is divided into thermal DOD and piezoelectric DOD. Most commercial printers use the DOD to print. The large format ones use solvent or water-based inks depending on the equipment and the product. The inks used in digital inkjet label printing presses are water based and formulated with either dyes or pigments. Aqueous inks provide the broadest color gamut and most vivid colors. The water-based inks are inexpensive and may ultimately spell out as the lowest cost print, but some substrates may require specialized coatings as there is an imperative need for the ink droplet to sink straight in and not to smudge or smear. With growing volumes, increased environmental and consumer friendly nature of inks the coated stock prices are likely to become largely affordable making this technology to watch as wider acceptance is envisaged. Such inkjet printers can achieve high resolution of 1600 DPI. Since the start of a new millennium another water-based inkjet technology called Memjet has been evolving. Memjet is used in high speed, full colour printers to give a high-quality print at a very low cost. It uses a fixed print head unlike conventional inkjet printers where the cartridges or head moves back and forth during printing. The Memjet print head is fixed and is of the width of the material it’s printing on enabling edge to edge printing. This way it’s only the material that moves underneath the head as it’s printed.
Major brands using water based digital inkjet printing: Trojan from Astronova, Afina, Colordyne
UV Inkjet Printing

UV inkjet Digital printing is an extension of the inkjet printing that uses ultra-violet light to dry or cure ink. The inks consist mainly of acrylic monomers together with a photo initiator and after printing when exposed to strong UV lamps or in case of specially formulated inks to LED-UV light, the ink is cured by crosslinking.

The ink due to this chemical reaction becomes instantly dried leading to increased printing speeds. The curing process with high power UV exposure for short periods of time (microseconds) allows printing on thermally sensitive substrates like BOPP and PE. Since the ink sits on top of the substrates and neither is dried by evaporation nor by absorption resulting a robust image on a wide range of uncoated substrates. It is the fastest growing sector of digital inkjet printing and more sustainable than conventional printing.
Major brand using digital UV inkjet printing: Canon, Domino, Durst, Epson, Screen, Xeikon

Selecting digital printing equipment for label printing is a complex task depending on the printer’s customer portfolio. It varies on many parameters, like the equipment price, ink price, media cost, media to be printed, consumables cost, speed of machine, resolution required, space and finishing required.

Time is not far when printers will invest in multiple technologies to attain the best of each process and to service a wide array of customers. However to start with the print on demand feature is so very attractive and for short runs it seems to be becoming an absolute necessary at least in case of established printers whose large investments in high end flexo or combination presses gets held up doing shorter runs and taking away valuable production time. Since short run demands from brand owners continue to swell along with need for variable data, it becomes necessary to opt for an offline finishing equipment which does not slow down their printing capabilities.

Most of the leading label press manufacturers have started offering Hybrid machines with combination of Digital and flexo printing capabilities along with decorating and finishing inline. It is not a simple decision to opt for the hybrids.

As mentioned earlier here, it all depends on the portfolio and requirements of individual label printers. It is interesting to note that all hybrid presses with digital capabilities displayed at Labelexpo Europe in September 2019 were fitted with UV inkjet digital presses. Leading press manufacturer who are offering Hybrids of flexo, digital and inline finishing include Gallus, Omet, Mark Andy, Nilpeter and MPS. With environmental concerns, migration of inks and other food or Pharma safety needs, non-waterbased inkjet systems may see more development in future. As of now due to the speed and versatility offered by UV Inkjet coupled with the ability to add additional white and other colours, UV inkjet is the predominantly used technology however investment is high. Therefore, selection of the best suited technology for digital in labels must be as per individual printer’s need and that of their diverse customer mix. It is a competitive time and cost of equipment, cost of consumables and the nature of output is very important to ponder over before finally selecting the first entry into digital.
Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi November 2019