Trending Now in Package and Label Printing

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three … BOOM! That’s about how long Super Bowl quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Cam Newton got to hold the football when they set to pass last month. Three seconds also is how short a time brand owners have to capture a consumer’s attention on the shelf, research has shown, which is why product differentiation is so critical. More than yards are lost on store shelves, where the competition isn’t playing games. They are playing for profits, and many are looking to package printers to help them win over customers and sales.

As usual, Super Bowl 50 was a golden opportunity for printers of packages and labels, especially for food and beverages. There’s no debating that millions of 12-ounce bottles of beer are imbibed during the big game, to wash down the millions of hot wings and nachos people are eating at parties. Exactly how many million is up for debate: 10 million, 20 million? But suffice it to say it’s a lot, albeit less than on the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or Labor Day holidays.

Brands seek to stand out at the point of sale with special effects that give the perception of quality, according to Kim Hensley, product manager at pressure-sensitive specialist MACtac Roll Label. “Today’s brands are employing a variety of specialty effects, such as varnishes, textures, and specialty inks in addition to vibrant, colorful labeling solutions,” Hensley pointed out.

Greg Kestler, director of technical products at specialty substrate manufacturer GPA, concurred: “For packaging and labels, the hottest trends now are anything that helps an application stand out. Advancements in press technology and substrates are raising the bar for what packaging can do: Metallics, foil stamping, and clear synthetics are trending now because they add to the ‘wow’ factor. Differentiation captures consumer attention, which often translates to higher sales,” Kestler continued. “Considering that more than two-thirds of consumer purchasing decisions are made in store, being different is a very good thing these days. Brand managers are searching for impact, and there are more ways now to accomplish that with unique substrates and finishing effects.”

Even corrugated has gotten more “sexy,” so to speak. Because brands and retailers need to differentiate so much, there now is demand for more frequent campaigns, customization, and versioning, Fujifilm reported. For corrugated printers this means shorter runs and faster job turnarounds that are not economical with traditional processes such as flexo and offset.

There weren’t so many cool substrate, UV-cure  ink, or digital output options at the last drupa show four years ago. Rewind to Super Bowl XLIII (Pittsburgh beat Arizona), seven years back, when the Great Recession was sacking relentlessly like this year’s MVP Von Miller of the Denver Broncos. Printing as we knew it was being pounded into the turf, under assault by digital technological advancements as well as by economic body blows. My old boss and longtime industry editor Bill Esler uttered something simple, yet profound in 2009: “Well, you can’t digitize a package,” he philosophized. Ponder that for three seconds and let it seep into your thought process. His statement rings as true today as it did then, as evidenced by the growth of packaging and label printing. (Read more about packaging’s growth in my December 2015 story, “Packaging May Pack a Trillion-dollar Punch for Print.” www.PrintingNews.com/12133401)

Crafting Brew and Labels

In more illustrative examples and signs of our times, where print firms small and large still struggle, Cenveo is investing $3 million in Nilpeter narrow-web label capabilities but divested its short-lived folding carton/packaging experiment that began last summer. The latter's $105-million sale to WestRock generates cash flow and allows the company to focus on “core operations, specifically our envelopes, labels, and commercial print segments,” explained CEO and chairman Bob Burton, Sr. The deal involves six facilities located in the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic along with strategic sourcing partnerships in Asia and the Caribbean that provide folded carton, shrink sleeve, and lithographic laminated display packaging solutions.

As Cenveo made the decision to abandon direct involvement in the packaging space, another publicly held firm has expanded its presence there while other parts of its business continue to decline. Quad/Graphics closed its Atglen, PA newspaper insert plant at the end of February, laying off some 150 employees. The decision to shutter the 455,000-square-foot facility, situated about 50 miles west of Philadelphia, was motivated in part by ongoing challenges in the economy that have negatively impacted retail advertising insert volumes and overall capacity in the printing industry, according to company spokesperson Nicole Mosca. Remaining work has been moved to rotogravure and offset facilities in West Virginia. Quad also is closing a web-offset retail insert plant in Kansas, which employed 90 people. Last November it announced a $100 million cost-reduction plan after posting a net loss of $772 million; more printing plants in Colorado, Connecticut, and Georgia were closed in January.

While the $4.5-billion mega print firm (NYSE: QUAD) is shrinking in some more traditional areas, it is in the process of reinventing its digital book printing platform and, at the same time, is investing in its packaging business, which has been identified as having high growth potential. Not surprisingly, perhaps, while printed newspaper and free-standing insert consumption continues to fall in the United States, people are still drinking a lot of beer. And all those beer bottles drunk on Super Bowl Sunday need packaging and labels – many of them ink on substrates produced on traditional offset and digital presses. “Gloss films are growing in popularity, especially in the beverage industry [craft beers] because they’ve been shown to capture shoppers’ attention,” said Hensley of MACtac. “The look gloss films offer is more vibrant labeling for increased shelf appeal.”

Chicago once may have been the Printing Capital of the World, but 90 miles north Milwaukee holds its claim on beer. Just ask Paul Nowak, regional sales manager for QuadPackaging, which counts 45 to 50 beverage customers among its accounts. Quad specializes in keeping costs down for micro and craft brew labels, not at all catering to the large beer players such as Miller, which is mass-brewed locally in Milwaukee.

A quintessential consideration in getting a micro-brew to market is packaging. One look at the local supermarket beer aisle demonstrates the importance of labelling and packaging. On the oft-refrigerated shelf, brews that feature highly detailed artwork compete for space and consumer gazes. In addition, there are detailed specifications around the packaging to protect the product -- specs around weight distribution, how the handle on a 6-pack or 4-pack must be formed, what moisture content the product can be exposed to ( i.e. whether or not the product will be stored in a refrigerated case), etc. However, such packaging can be so cost-prohibitive that it can keep a micro-brew from ever hitting the shelf.

To keep these micro-brews flowing to the general public, QuadPackaging has put in place a technology platform to keep its operational efficiencies high and its costs low. It also has developed a unique business model offering small craft brewers the opportunity to group their orders together to become one larger order to gain greater economies of scale and lower costs. “For larger volumes we use a 40-inch Heidelberg [sheetfed] press and a 58-inch KBA,” explained Nowak, “printing on pressed fiber with clay coating or SBS [solid bleached sulphate] paperboard. To drive down manufacturing costs for smaller players, we have implemented a group [gang] run program using stocked board.” The supply-chain model notifies customers of the dates and times when certain structures are running. An HP Indigo digital press is used for smaller, promotional label runs, he added.

Epicor AVP product packaging software is the other way QuadPackaging helps to control costs for the small guys. “Their ERP software looks at workflow from the lens of packaging, which is rare,” noted Nowak, who began using Epicor four years ago when he was GM at Proteus. “It is built for folding cartons and labels – from estimating and quoting through raw materials, production, and invoicing. It also has a scheduling feature that reveals capacity.”

Colin Walterson, product manager for Epicor Printing & Packaging, concluded: “We are providing the visibility at each step in the process to enable QuadPackaging to understand demand, open production windows, … and [help] enable the company to offer the ability to bundle the craft brew business together to offer discounts throughout the printing/packaging process.”

Speaking of beer, here’s a peek at package (and label) print at drupa 16 in Germany in less than three months: www.PrintingNews.com/12168221

Quad/Graphics entered the packaging scene five years ago with the acquisition of Schreiber Specialties, a print finishing company in Sussex, WI, situated literally down the street from its corporate headquarters. The two firms had partnered for many years, with Quad using Schreiber’s high-end specialty finishing services, such as embossing, foil stamping, combo stamping (i.e., embossing with foil stamping), die cutting, and automated folding and gluing to enhance its service offerings. Schreiber also manufactured beverage containers.

Then in late 2013 Quad purchased Transpak Corp. and Proteus Packaging; both firms were headquartered nearby in Franklin, WI, just south of Milwaukee. Proteus served the high-end folding carton market, offering packaging solutions for a variety of industries including automotive, biotechnology, food, personal care, pharmaceuticals, software, and electronics. Last April Quad acquired Spartanburg, SC-based Copac Global Packaging, a leading international provider of innovative packaging and supply-chain solutions. Copac, which manufactured high-end folding cartons, labels, inserts, hang tags, and specialty envelopes, gave Quad a truly global footprint with production facilities in South Carolina and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In addition, through Copac, we now has the ability to strategically source product manufacturing near numerous end markets in Central America and Asia. When we acquired Copac, Quad decided to sunset the Transpak, Proteus, and Copac brands, and create one cohesive packaging business under a new brand, QuadPackaging. Finally, last August, QuadPackaging acquired Specialty Finishing, a full-service paperboard folding carton manufacturer in Omaha, NE. So Quad now has four facilities producing folding cartons and labels.

Smarter Package Quest

MACtac’s Hensley cited an added challenge: Customers also are demanding more convenient packaging for their food and beverages, household, cosmetics, and other products. And while it is important to get the aesthetics right, the functional performance of the packaging also can be improved through the right special-effect solutions. For bulk packaging, the reseal feature is a major selling point to keep contents fresh. “Brand owners benefit through long-term brand awareness when packaging is continuously reused as a result of the reclose/reseal function of their packaging,” she explained, which is why MACtac is expanding its portfolio of film facestocks with new reclosable/resealable labels come Labelexpo in Chicago in September.

Who hasn’t been bombarded by too many product choices while shopping? I mean, how many different types of razor blades or tooth paste do there need to be? John DiVincenzo, VP and general manager of the Xerox digital packaging business team, said that despite the negative connotations of “SKU proliferation,” there are positives, too, to having a variety of stock-keeping units (SKUs) from which to choose. The key is “where to do it, and how to do it in a smart way,” he stated, adding that education in these areas is still needed.

Few industry observers will dispute Xerox’s pioneering role as a digital print transformational leader. “Workflow is in our DNA,” DiVincenzo noted. And despite recent engineer downsizings at its worldwide headquarters in Webster, NY, he said company engineers both there and at its PARC (the Palo Alto Research Center) subsidiary on the West Coast have made strides in the quest for smarter, added-value  packaging using printed electronics, including advanced memory developments and the logic circuits.

Last September, Xerox introduced two printed electronic labels that can collect and store information about the authenticity and condition of products. The first, called Xerox Printed Memory, is a highly secure, printed label containing up to 36 bits of rewritable memory that can store up to 68 billion points of data. These labels, for example, can be used to determine if a product is genuine and to track how it has been handled during distribution.

The second product, Xerox Printed Memory with Cryptographic Security, includes a unique, encrypted printed code (such as a QR barcode) to the memory. This technology, developed by PARC researchers, can only be read by authorized personnel using a reader, which interfaces with a secure smartphone application. This combination of printed memory with an encrypted printed code, creates one of the most secure, anti-counterfeit solutions on the market, according Xerox. It is ideal for use in applications as wide ranging as tracking and ensuring the safety of pharmaceutical products to securing tax or duty stamps for government agencies.

"This makes it possible to ensure the integrity of a product from the time it leaves the factory to the time it gets into the hands of a customer" said Steve Simpson, the VP responsible for Xerox Printed Memory. "Our printed memory products provide a cost efficient, highly secure method of authenticating and verifying information about a product as it moves through various distribution channels or as it is used.”

Traditional anti-counterfeiting methods such as invisible ink, holograms, and RFID tags can be copied and are often expensive to implement. In contrast Xerox Printed Memory with Cryptographic Security offers brand owners a solution that is inexpensive and difficult to counterfeit because every label is uniquely encrypted.

In December 2014, Xerox licensed proprietary printed memory technology from Thin Film Electronics ASA, a Norwegian company and a leader in the development and commercialization of printed electronics. Under this licensing agreement, Xerox plans to produce printed memory at its Webster plant.  For the past few years, PARC scientists and ThinFilm have been working together on enabling smart labels based on Thinfilm’s proprietary Addressable Memory.

More Sustainable Future Packaging

Brand owners of the future should be able to reuse materials or reprogram packages using “intelligent” sensors. Think of it as recycling beyond paper, urged Terry Taber, Kodak’s chief technology officer. “There needs to be a reusable, value-added element to packaging,” Taber said, much like there is for, say, inkjet printer ink cartridges. “Remember the old, single-use ‘disposable’ cameras,” the 36-year Kodak veteran asked. “The ones that you could tear apart and recycle the plastic [parts]? We hardly ever used virgin materials for those after the early 1990s.”

Taber and Kodak envision such intelligent sensors as part of the printing line where the logic circuit is added to the package along with text and graphics. These circuits would be reprogrammable, he added, enabling the manufacturers to change basic information such as product expiration dates. Printed electronics are necessary to promote such communication, and he sees NFC (near-field communication) antennae powered by printable batteries becoming cost-effective alternatives, perhaps, by the year 2020. “Printed electronics technology solutions have been developed in labs, but they must have an affordability component.” One example: Micro gels may be used to print sensors, he noted, but the unit cost has to come down from a few dollars per sensor to 50 cents or even 25 cents to make sense for larger scale packaging production. As of now, such technology shows promise but is still cost-prohibitive for brand owners/manufacturers.

Other options might include printed transistors or RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips, the latter of which has not yet been done. Another example, although not widely adopted, Taber said, is time-temperature sensors on perishable food packages. “Showing that a frozen product was above freezing is a relatively simple application,” he explained. Some products, such as a company shipping premium-priced frozen steaks, might want to record a temperature profile during distribution in 1- or 5-degree increments. Spoilage for food companies is like returns for catalog retailers: never good for the bottom line. “A frozen steak that got above 32 degrees for five minutes is still good,” Taber cited for the sake of illustration. On the other hand, the company or the end consumer could refuse the product if the profile is unacceptable.

Down the road for labels and packaging, Taber said brand owners need to consider how technology improves the value chain versus the technology itself. “This is a business model consideration,” he added. “High-resolution flexography requires high-density applications. The question will be, can you be sustainable and make money?”

Shorter press runs is probably the biggest packaging trend, and it will continue, believes Xerox. “We see messaging and products to fit a specific customer versus every customer,” DiVincenzo shared. Much like in the commercial print space, package printers more and more will serve the marketing departments within brand owners and not the procurement department, he added. “It goes beyond personalization to include regionalization and couponing.”

INX Digital GM Craig Reid pointed to a non-cookie-cutter trend to watch for on the finishing side: “Another driver is the movement to custom cut-outs using either standalone or built-in laser cutters,” he said, noting that traditional dies are expensive and time-consuming. “These are not your standard labels.” INX manufactures the NW210 inkjet UV narrow-web press, which comes available with a built-in Spartanics X210 laser diecutting station. “It’s print, cut, and be done,” Reid explained. The Tau LFS 330 from Durst Image Technology offers a similar option for a laser diecutter. (Read more on digital finishing: "Not Your Daddy's Die-cutting.")

In the not-too-distant future, Xeikon envisions even more efficiencies and seamlessness in the packaging workflow process. Its Fusion Technology seeks to combine production modules in an integrated label printing and finishing solution – integrated not only mechanically but also in terms of the ability to process a job as a bundle of steps executed in a single-pass sequence by the system itself. Everything would be contained in a single digital file that controls all functions, so printing and embellishing could be fully automated and unattended. The OEM believes this would make it possible to produce virtually any label or package, on demand, with or without variable elements.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

• Product manufacturers and their package/label printing partners seem to be in an ongoing race to keep up with changing regulations. Glimpse at some upcoming legislation.
• “There’s an Ink for That” explores developments with the other consumable needed to print packages and labels. An interview with INX Digital GM Craig Reid.
• Why was our editor willing to pay $100 for a bottle of whiskey in a fancy package? (Was it worth it?)