HP Indigo has won the major innovation award at the Label Industry Global Awards in Brussels at the close of Labelexpo Europe 2015. Over 500 guests gathered at the awards ceremony to find out which of the 17 finalist companies would be walking away with a coveted industry gong.
HP Indigo has won the major innovation award at the Label Industry Global Awards in Brussels at the close of Labelexpo Europe 2015. Over 500 guests gathered at the awards ceremony to find out which of the 17 finalist companies would be walking away with a coveted industry gong.
HP Indigo won the Award for Innovation (for companies with more than 300 employees) for its work in developing its HP SmartStream Mosaic software. Following a request from Coca-Cola Israel to create a unique variable product with shelf appeal – after the success of the Share a Coke customized name campaign on Coke bottles - HP Indigo delivered the ability to create millions of unique images and designs on labels and packaging from seed patterns using an innovative graphics algorithm (see above).
The Award for Innovation (for companies with up to 300 employees) went to joint recipients GEW and Lake Image Systems. GEW impressed judges with its RHINO electronic power supply, which has been developed to enable the lowest possible operating cost for a UV-curing system. Lake Image Systems was honoured for MaxScan, its latest addition to the Discovery MultiScan family. Based on contact scanning technology, MaxScan provides benefits over traditional line scan camera technology.
Lintec won the Award for Sustainability for developing a new label facestock, KP5000, which uses the world's highest percentage (80%) of recycled PET pellets. The new face material, which has physical features equivalent to virgin PET films and has a lower production cost than other recycled materials, is produced from mechanically recycled PET bottles.
Kurt Walker was presented with the R. Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award. Sponsored by Avery Dennison, the award is given to an individual who has made a substantial contribution to the label industry over a minimum of 25 years. Walker received the award in recognition of his work with FINAT and in driving innovation and best practice throughout the international label community.
“Choosing winners from such an impressive list of companies was always going to be difficult and all of our winners and finalists truly deserve our utmost admiration and congratulations,” said Mike Fairley, chair of the judges.
Labelexpo 2015 was defined by the emergence of a whole raft of inkjet presses lining up to challenge HP Indigo’s dominant position in digital labels, said Print21 publishing editor Patrick Howard in his wrap-up of the event.