“From Cartons and Commercial Printing to 100% Labels!”

“From Cartons and Commercial Printing to 100% Labels!”

Narinder Chhatwal hailed from a family of traders in Lyallpur, a city which is now in Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. Lyallpur was named after the founder of the city the then Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, Sir James Lyall, for his role in establishing the canal colonisation project. In 1977 the Government of Pakistan changed the name of the city from Lyallpur to Faisalabad (‘City of Faisal’) in honour of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who made several financial contributions to Pakistan. Faisalabad is the third-most-populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and Lahore, respectively. It was in the turbulent times of 1947 during the division of India into India and Pakistan, that the Chhatwals migrated to New Delhi. After completing his schooling, Narinder Chhatwal took up a job in the iconic Kwality Restaurant in coveted location, New Delhi’s Connaught Place, a venture set up in 1940 by P L Lamba and his brother-in-law I K Ghei who grew it as a multilocation restaurant chain. Narinder worked there until 1961. There was a strong urge to have his own business, so he set up a unit to produce ice cream cups but as situation warranted then, he left this venture and rejoined Kwality Restaurant yet again in 1964. Despite the stable job, the entrepreneur in him was restless and the urge to set up his own production unit re-surfaced and he finally quit the job permanently to start a printing unit nostalgically named Kwality Carton Manufacturing Company, in a single room rented at Kirti Nagar, New Delhi in 1966-67 using the manually fed treadle letterpress printing machine. He manufactured Ice cream cups, lids, cartons for Ice cream bricks and in fact a host of printed packaging items. In 1971 he could get an allotment for an industrial plot from government at Naraina Industrial Area and he moved the unit to this location where from, they operate to this date.

 
A little over a year after moving into their Naraina factory they bought their first offset printing press, a 712 single colour Dominant, a year later they bought another similar press and followed it up with a 714 Dominant. Falling short of space, the adjoining building was available, so they bought it as they were growing. In 1982-83, expanding further they acquired a two colour Planeta. Once into offset printing, Kwality was in expansion mode, they were adding equipment every alternate year. At this time, they renamed the company as Kwality Offset Printers. In 1986 Narinder Chhatwal’s son Rajeev an 18-year-old had joined business. Rajeev did his initial Schooling at Springdales School Delhi followed with graduation from Delhi University. The post partition Punjabi families who left all that they had, back in what had become Pakistan were hard working and were quick to start from scratch to regain their stature by sheer hard work. The second generation were all following their father’s footsteps and would be helping their parents in the work, spending time after school or college on the shopfloors of their startup units. For them, the shop floors became the training ground, and they learnt the nuances of business hands on. Rajeev was no different, with a  father like Narinder mentoring him and passing on the experience to his son who was a quick learner, he settled down in the business quickly. He however did go for a short training program at Heidelberg Germany. With his joining in, the business accelerated and soon the space in their Naraina factory was again falling short. In 1988, they bought out yet another next-door unit to make room for more production space so now the factory is operating from three adjacent plots. The same year they bought their first four colour offset press a secondhand Roland. Expansion became a routine process. They believed and were convinced that as far as possible it is better to operate from a unified single location in one city. This way the management which was Narinder Chhatwal, and his son Rajeev Chhatwal were not split and would remain a support to each other.

 

 

Until 1995 Kwality offset was producing Cartons, some commercial printed items and wet glue labels. In 1995-96 they decided to become a hundred percent label manufacturing unit which was only wet glue labels. The story of their entry into wet glue labels is interesting. In the early 1990s when the number of breweries started to grow and bottling speeds were on the rise. To label bottles at 250 bottles per minute, the labels needed to be perfectly die punched and stacked to run on highspeed lines. The normal flatbed dies would not work well. Kwality, because of their experience in ice cream cups and lids production were well versed in ram die punching and their workers were well trained in the process. Their manufactured labels ran extremely well on the high-speed labelling machines at breweries and distilleries and soon the word spread of their capabilities. This helped them get the orders from many other breweries and liquor producing companies. It was just a matter of time that they became the largest suppliers of wet glue labels in north India, though they were supplying pan national. It is interesting to note that normally people print and then get into label finishing equipment, here because of their knowledge of finishing the ice cream cup lids by hydraulic ram punching got them into high end big volume label printing. Their first customer for beer labelling was a government owned Haryana breweries at Sonepat making a popular brand of beer those days “Rosy Pelican.” Their success in making the perfectly die-punched wet glue labels also got them their first break in corporate world with orders from the multinational brand owner Nestle.

 

 

It was in the year 2000 when self-adhesive labels were gaining in popularity, the Chhatwals invested in a Mark Andy 2200  narrow web label press and in the following year, they also increased their investment in sheetfed offset by installing a six colour Heidelberg press. In 2002 they installed another sheetfed offset a five colour Roland with UV and online coater. Hereon, expansion became an ongoing process, they added three Mark Andy presses, a Gallus and a Xeikon in 2018 to make their entry into digitally printed labels with an ABG Digicon series 3 finishing and embellishing machine, which also has hot foil stamping , embossing and screen-printing capabilities. These investments enabled them to add multiple security features on labels. Increasing their footprint in flexo they also set up inhouse platemaking with Kodak Flexcel. Rajeev’s father Narinder Chhatwal passed away in 2008 until when, he was still attending business, though the reins had been passed on to his son Rajeev.

 

 

Rajeev’s other siblings include a younger brother who is into real estate and a sister who is a homemaker. His wife Shalini is also a home maker. His son Krish completed his business management from Sydney and joined business at Kwality offset four years ago. Two of those initial years were passed in facing the pandemic and last year in 2021 he got married. Krish’s wife Sanya, an expert in baking, after completing a course from APCA Malaysia, is running her own business, a bakery named Delhi’ce in Gurgaon making specialty cakes. Rajeev’s daughter recently completed her study in architecture and is now pursuing her career as an architect.

 

 

Having put in place a full-fledged team to manage all production, Rajeev, and son Krish personally look after sales and marketing. While Krish looks after all new customers, Rajeev manages and caters to, and successfully retains all old customers. The present spread of business is with three flexo presses, one digital label press Xeikon, Abg digicon, one Roland and one Heidelberg sheet offset press in a shopfloor admeasuring approximately 60,000 square feet. Total workforce is 130 persons all in one location at Naraina Industrial Area New Delhi. With no more space left for expansion at present location, they have bought a 2200 square yard plot at Manesar south of New Delhi for another factory to fuel their further expansion. When asked about future plans, Rajeev expresses that they are not really concerned about just volumes, they are more oriented to implement better and innovative technology and be profitable to grow the bottom line instead of focusing on bigger turnovers. Kwality has been growing at about 10 percent per annum and they are committed to maintain the growth rate. Conscious about the environment they have tied up with approved and certified waste management agencies as also cooperating with Avery Dennison on their waste management endeavours. They even try and source most of their paper materials from FSC certified vendors. Despite the aftereffects of pandemic, the father-son team are committed and firm to keep the expansion and investment in new technologies an ongoing process. Their resolve years ago to give-up cartons and other commercial printing to stay with 100% manufacturing of labels is unique in today’s situation. These days offset printers do integrate forward to produce labels and vice-versa label printers, in an effort to grow turnovers, expand into print packaging. They wish to remain specialty label printers, investing into innovation.

 

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2022

PS: Printing Magazine may publish this article giving credit to author Harveer Sahni and Blog https://harveersahni.blogspot.com  

Marks Emballage, an international banker’s foray into Label Manufacturing

Marks Emballage, an international banker’s foray into Label Manufacturing
Marks Emballage factory at Baddi

 

In May 2018, the Indian label fraternity was amazed to read the news of an upcoming relatively young label company Marks Emballage announcing the confirmation to buy two Gallus Labelmaster presses in one go. This one step would take this nondescript label manufacturing company into the big league. The author has been in the Indian label industry for over four decades. As far as memory recollects, there have been instances when two presses have been ordered by printers to be delivered one after the other with a gap of time, but the unique instance of two presses to be delivered and installed in just one go is a first one such occurrence so far, this is history for the Indian label industry! By rough estimates, a 4 billion Dollar labels industry (not label stock but finished labels) growing at an average of 10-15% per annum surely needs such investments regularly to meet the 400-500 million Dollar growth in demands of labels. Leading Mark Emballage, Aadtiya Kashyap, a former international banker, is the courageous one who made his foray into the Indian label industry and announced his first significant expansion investment with a bang.

 

 

Aaditya and Khushboo

Aaditya was born and brought up in Mumbai, an Alumnus of St. Xavier’s School Mumbai (He prefers to call the city Bombay as he has called it all his life). Later he finished his graduation from the prestigious Ruia College, Mumbai, in Mathematics. He had considered a career in computers and did a couple of courses in that, but he graduated in the subject since he was good in mathematics. While in Ruia college, he fell in love with Khushboo Singh, who was pursuing BA in the same college. After a courtship lasting almost five years, they decided to tie the knot and got married in 2008. After graduation, Aaditya got his first job in the international bank J P Morgan, where he worked for the next seven years. This job was a good learning experience in how systems in business work and how different departments work. He was the only one in the organization at that time who got four promotions in seven years. Those were many learning years that added to his experience. Looking back, he is happy that he worked there, as the experience has been helping him when in business. 

 

 

 

Aaditya’s wife Khushboo belongs to a successful business family involved in pharmaceuticals, so it was a matter of time that his In-Laws prompted him to consider entrepreneurial options. The suggestions ranged from indulging in pharmaceutical products to items connected to pharma. Khushboo’s grandfather Samprada Singh took it upon himself to mentor Aaditya. Samprada Singh, the founder of Alkem Laboratories, had a significant influence on Aaditya. He was a true visionary and an impactful leader whose life was full of beautiful lessons of courage, resolve, hard work and indomitable willpower. His journey from a tiny village in Bihar to establishing India’s largest pharma company is just an extraordinary one. His life story portrays the old English adage, “From tiny acorns grow mighty oaks.”

 

 

 

Initially, Aaditya spent time in Alkem Laboratories to learn various aspects of the pharma business. First, he spent time with the purchasing team before moving on to “Doctor’s gifting”, a concept that was a contact-building and promotional cum marketing exercise undertaken by pharma companies to stay connected with doctors. A year down the line, he moved to Galpha laboratories owned by his Father-in-law N K Singh taking care of the same portfolio of doctor gifting until a government notification limited the scope of “doctor giftings”. At this time, he faced another change of job profile or considered another line. In his time spent with the purchasing team at Alkem & Galpha, he had gained much knowledge about packaging and its nuances. Khushboo, being born into the pharma business family, was a natural fit to take up professional responsibilities. As business was in her blood, she joined her father’s company, GALPHA which she had joined immediately after college in 2004-2005, primarily taking care of production planning, purchase of packaging and raw materials. The circumstances, as they evolved, led Aaditya to consider making a foray into packaging.

 

 

Meanwhile, Aaditya and Khushboo decided to move to Baddi to set up a pharma unit extension of GALPHA, manufacturing formulations. Aaditya’s experience as a banker kept bringing to him the realization that if two people are doing the same thing, then the output is restricted. He started looking at some other venture. His brother-in-law Dr J P N SINGH (Khushboo’s sister’s husband), who also is looked upon as a mentor by Aaditya, was making pet bottles, suggested label manufacturing and that, eventually led him to decide on labels. JPN had prompted, “all the bottles I make will have labels made by you on them”. His father-in-law NK Singh and grandfather Samprada Singh all agreed that labels were good business. So, in 2011 the decision was taken to set up a label manufacturing unit. The initial two and half years were spent trading in labels, outsourcing them from different vendors and supplying to group companies. During this period, he spent much time with the printers at their factories, getting the right kind of labels and in the process learnt the basics of label manufacturing from prepress to plate making and finally converting. He is indebted to Datta Ram Fulsundar of Aarya Printpack – Mumbai, with whom he had confided about setting up his unit, yet the printer agreed to teach and train him all about manufacturing labels.

 

Since Aaditya had made up his mind to invest in a label press and print labels himself, JPN mentoring him on, suggested; that to test the heat, one should check with just a finger touch before putting your hand in, meaning start the operation at a tiny stage and go thereon. In November 2013, Aaditya, with his wife Khushboo as a partner, launched their maiden startup venture, Marks Fine Printers in Baddi Himachal Pradesh, in a 2000 square feet industrial shed with just one Chinese stack type flexo label press. While Khushboo continued to look after GALPHA Laboratories Baddi, Aaditya got full time into setting up the label unit. The first order, even though it came from a family-owned company GALPHA laboratories, the experience was, as Aaditya says, “Exhilarating! It was like scoring a maiden cricket century.” For the next two years, they catered to family-owned pharma companies. The biggest challenge was getting the suitable operators and people to run the press but then time elapsed, which has taught him to manage that. 2 years after initiation, Aaditya seemed to have tested the heat and confidence, invested in a Bobst label press. Once the operations were well set, it was time to get customers beyond the family companies. The natural step was to rope in companies that were contract manufacturers to the group. Subsequently, they ventured out to service customers outside the family reach, initially it was all pharma as they had much experience in the segment, but later, they got into all segments like Food, FMCG, Liquor and others. He remains indebted to the four mentors that including his father. It is their advice that made this possible. Aaditya always wanted to be like his father, who taught him; “The name that you earn, always has more value than the money earned”.  Walking on his father’s footsteps, Aaditya has ensured a good name for himself along with setting up a successful business. Once established, it was time to get experienced professionals in and systemize the whole operations. They looked around and slowly got their team together.

 

 

 

C K, Aaditya with Ferdi and Sameer of Gallus 

In packaging requirements for pharmaceuticals, the size of labels is relatively small, but when Aaditya started to look at other segments, the label size was much bigger, which meant that with the same inputs and infrastructure, the costing would be different, turnover would grow bigger. This was an exciting realization, and the vision to expand started getting more precise. Initially, Aaditya had planned to add a press every three years, but this new realization prompted him to grow exponentially. He established the new company Marks Emballage Pvt. Ltd. in 2018 to invest in two Gallus label presses in one go. Hoping to make a substantial impact in the Indian label industry with their big move, however, as luck would have it, they started printing on these two presses in April 2020 when the pandemic hit across. Covid has been a difficult time for Marks Emballage. The first few days were a mixture of too many different feelings inside, from the fear of the unknown, concern for employee’s safety, responsibilities to serve the customers. Despite the uncertainties, they gathered themselves and planned to navigate through the difficult time. This was possible only with the total dedication of their team, who put up great courage and kept the business going and growing. They realize that going into the future, leaner companies and more automation will be the way forward. Cloud technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality combined will reduce human physical contact and dependence. This will be the biggest shift for all businesses and Marks is no exception. This goes on to validate their investment in the right equipment, processes, certifications, and team.

 

 

 
Besides having residence in Mumbai, Aaditya and Khushboo now stay in Chandigarh with their 8-year-old daughter Kiara. While they complement each other in work yet look after different businesses. Marks Emballage Pvt. Ltd. is a fast-growing company headquartered at Chandigarh and operates out of factories at two locations in Baddi. The plant is spread over 30,000 square feet and equipped with some of the finest equipment like print kits from Gallus, Bobst, AVT, Prati , Pantec and Xrite. A team of 60 people is creating a work culture of excellence. Talking of new ideas and projects and the vision for the next five years, Aaditya says, “We have too many ideas to implement. I am working on many exciting new projects in technology, consumer products, packaging, and pharma. We aspire to roll out at least one new project every year for the next five years. This is the time for us to spread our wings before getting into a consolidation mode in 5 years. 
 
CK Gadhia of Marks giving student of year awards
 
 
 
The journey has just begun”. Marks Emballage has, as a part of its CSR initiative, invested in sponsoring the annual “Printweek Student of the year” award. They are very keen to backup educational initiatives for encouraging the new generation to take up print as a career. 

 

 


As he plans his way forward in the label and packaging field, Aaditya makes a fervent appeal to peers, “I would like to appeal to all the fellow label printers that we should all work with better collaboration and work with each other rather than work against each other. Together we can have great strength to backup print education to ease our recruitment needs, have complimentary print technologies to avoid idle capacities, and have a better say in purchase or sales negotiations. The advantages are just many. It is time to team up and grow the industry together. We need to increase the overall pie. While we are all doing the basics of waste management today, the need of the hour is to attack the problem from the very base. We are studying and closely following linerless labels and believe that they can be a game-changer for our industry. As per industry reports, only 5% of the laminates and self-adhesive label stock is reused or recycled. This area demands our closest attention. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marks Emballage is a company to watch, as an ambitious team aspires to grow 10-fold by the end next five years. With a young, dynamic leader like Aaditya Kashyap at the helm, hoping the pandemic’s after-effects soon end, this company will be moving fast to achieve targets and move tangentially, investing in technologies in synergy.

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2021

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

Indian Label Industry: LMAI Conference 2019, KOCHI, Kerala

Indian Label Industry: LMAI Conference 2019, KOCHI, Kerala

Grand Hyatt Kochi
India’s label association LMAI’s 5th biennial conference is planned to be the biggest and most successful event of Indian label industry. The event is scheduled to be held at recently opened property, HOTEL GRAND HYATT, KOCHI, BOLGATTI from 25th – 28th July, 2019. Perched on 26 acres of plush green land on the serene Bolgatty Island, Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty is a waterfront urban resort overlooking the backwaters of Vembanad Lake.


Grand Hyatt Waterfront




Leading label printing companies and suppliers will meet to discuss, evaluate opportunities, learn and strike business partnerships that shape the future of their businesses in relaxing ambience and surroundings. LMAI conference has been growing in strength and numbers over the years.







2017 LMAI Conference at Agra





The last conference was held at Agra with 550 delegates. The LMAI leadership is expecting the attendance to jump up to 600 delegates. An elaborate knowledge sharing, entertainment and technical program is being put in place to deliver value to the LMAI members coming from all over India.






About the city Kochi: Kochi (formerly known as Cochin) is a city in southwest India's coastal Kerala state, fondly referred to as “God’s own country”. It has been a port since 1341, when a flood carved out its harbour and opened it to Arab, Chinese and European merchants. Sites reflecting those influences include Fort Kochi, a settlement with tiled colonial bungalows and diverse houses of worship. Cantilevered Chinese fishing nets, typical of Kochi, have been in use for centuries.