Jet Technologies and Screen drew a good crowd of industry professionals for the Sydney leg of a three-part series presenting the latest in labelling and narrow web printing.
Jack Malki hosted the event at the company’s Rosebery HQ introducing a heavyweight line-up of speakers that includes Gary Seward of UK-based Pulse Roll Label Products, Dieter Niederstadt of Asahi Photoproducts in Dortmund as well as Peter Scott, the local managing director of Screen. Topics ranged from colour management between digital and flexo, how to improve overall equipment effectiveness with flexo to what we can do to ameliorate the amount of plastic waste going into landfill.
Seward took a light-hearted approach to the bewildering array of regulations in the EU, the UK and Australia/NZ for food packaging. With a stereotypical British penchant for making light of serious matters he illustrated his presentation with examples of extreme regulations from the EU. He made the point that apart from tin and ceramics all material, including plastics, allow migration of chemicals through to foodstuffs. Much of the regulations are about finding an acceptable level of migration. As the managing director of his own ink manufacturing company this is a major preoccupation for Seward and essential knowledge to be passed on to his label and packaging printing customers.
Clean transfer technology and a fixed seven-colour palette are the latest developments in flexo printing. Niederstadt proved to be a technology guru for the sector. He showed how printers by changing to Asahi’s new CTT plates were able to get the press running at 33% faster with one set of plates able to print for up to 22 hours.
Peter Scott pressed the point that while the global print market is worth US$790 billion it’s only increasing at 0.8 every year. The packaging-printing sector on the other hand is at US$329 billion with a growth of 5.3%. Of that only US$10 billion is currently done by digital, which is increasing by 12% per annum. There’s a lot of upside there for printers looking to get into the digital end of the market.
Jack Malki bookended the session with a piece on the impact of sensory packaging on consumers. It's a favourite topic and valuable information for label printers to present to brand owner customers. Then he spoke with great conviction of the need for printers to get in front of impending regulation with OXO-biodegradable films. These can reduce landfill waste by up to 70%. It’s obviously something Malki feels very strongly about.
The Innovation Series was in Auckland on Monday night, hosted by SALMA. Tomorrow Thursday it’s in Melbourne at the Yarra Yarra Golf Club, Bentleigh East, kicking off at 7.45am.
It's well worth your time.