François Martin
BOBST GROUP MARKETING & COMMUNICATION MANAGER, PL NARROW MID WEB MARKETING DIRECT
All brand owners are asking for faster turnaround times, so we are moving from flexo to the digital print process. We have substrate shortages and price increases, so we need to deal with waste in a meaningful way and we are facing issues with skilled operators. These are the pain points of the label industry.
We have created a new line of label presses that combine flexo modules and digital printing capabilities, giving the best from both. Our new label printing solution can cope with any job. All you know from flexo is available, including embellishment units, and all you expect from a digital production press is also possible, meaning you can run viable data printing and very short runs, at 100 meters a minute, and the quality is fantastic, 300dpi.
Four of our customers have installed the machine. The first is one of the largest label printers in the world – Geostick-Netherlands. They say the future will rely on different technology, of which one is inkjet. They chose the Bobst Digital Master 340 to develop printing capabilities, as that machine is extremely fast. People are printing on demand, last minute, and Geostick is now capable of this.
Berkshire-UK also invested in Bobst Digital Master 340 because it combines flexo and digital modules. You take the best of both worlds depending on what you want to do, and the running cost is very low. Third is the largest printer in Spain, Germark. They need to combine inkjet toner, electrophotography and flexo, and they are printing a lot of jobs for the cosmetic industry where white is used. They are also very sensitive to waste management. The last is French label converter Anjou Labels. With this machine, they can go up to 15,000 meters very easily with the same machine, with embedded quality control.
This is innovation. Printing is becoming label production. You can move from flexo to something new without risk, because your press operators will start with what they know and they will migrate to digital, which is extremely easy to operate with a lot of automation.
Eric Pavone
REGION BUSINESS DIRECTOR, AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY AND CAUCASUS, BOBST BUSINESS UNIT PRINTING & CONVERTING
Sustainability is fundamental at Bobst. It is one of the four pillars of our strategy, along with connectivity, digitalisation and automation. We have been running full PE and full PP high barrier projects around the world, starting three years ago. What is really the key driver in the industry for the high barrier full PE, full PP is a paper-based solution that’s vacuum metallising. Vacuum metallising is the way to replace barriers like aluminium foil with a recyclable process.
Bobst started this high barrier solution in full PE, full PP and now paper-based around, and then we saw we need it coating, precoating, top-coating, with an additional barrier, adhesion, and so on, especially on PE film.
Brand owners also want more sustainable production for printing. They want less solvent, they want water-based, and they want different printing media on all these very sensitive substrates. This is why we are now able with Bobst and our Eco system comprising our partners as we collectively bring this kind of sustainable solution printed in digital, narrow mid-web flexo and gravure. Last but not least, I share with you our core ecosystem.
We started without polyethene then we also covered Alpine for MDO and we had Michelman and Elba for bag-making – now, after threefour years, we have these kinds of ecosystems around Bobst which means, for every single supplier for every single structure, we have the recipe. We know how to run our substrate and how to set up our machines. We are working with Borealis and Reifenhauser, we are working on blown PP, high-barrier blown PE, and now we have recipes for high-blown paper with Reifenhauser and with Bruckner, two years ago we had the first BOPE, and now you see in the market BOPE film with high barrier metallised for Alox as well.
We talked about innovation, we talked about sustainability. These solutions are available now. So, we should not say sustainability is a target for 2030 or 2050. We can do it now.