Ball & Doggett has signed a partnership agreement with Sappi to distribute its sustainable barrier papers, which provide the sought-after barrier functionality in paper-based food packaging.

Printing packaging shot into the spotlight during the year as the big opportunity for printers of all kinds, particularly those whose volumes and margins are being squeezed as digital communications take more of the marketing dollar from commercial print.

QLM Label Makers is creating a new division, qlmflexibles, with innovative print businesses Luminar and Read Labels & Packaging, and will target both the digital and FMCG flexible packaging markets under the new brand.

ePac has connected its burgeoning number of plants around the world together, with a new cloud-based system, ePacOne, which means it can easily print the same job in different locations.

The world’s biggest press manufacturer, Heidelberg, is targeting packaging printers with a new version of the Speedmaster 106 XL, which it says will be the fastest offset press on the market.

The first Print21+PKN LIVE event for three years saw a succession of brand owners and print service providers step up in harmony to share how their innovative use of digitally printed packaging is driving their sales growth.

Jason Brown, managing director of ePac ANZ was joined on stage by one of his clients, Brian Nasr, founder of Healthy Food Crew, with the duo sharing how digitally printed packaging was giving SME producers control, freedom and opportunity, enabling sales growth.

Jet Technologies has designed and implemented a marketing campaign for yoghurt brand Chobani, each pot featuring a unique competition code printed on the food contact side of a yoghurt tub’s inner foil seal.

The evolution and education of digital packaging print technology, print on demand, sustainability, the unboxing experience and packvertising were topics discussed by a panel of industry experts Paul Haggett, Joe Foster, Zaidee Jackson and Paul Sanelli at Print21+PKN LIVE.

Printers, brands, designers, agencies, supermarkets and suppliers have registered for next week’s Print21+PKN LIVE in Melbourne, which focuses on opportunities for all in digitally printed packaging.

Amcor saw its Australian flexibles print packaging business achieve “strong growth” in the first quarter of the new financial year, as the company achieved positive results in all areas, bar China.

Papermaking giant Stora Enso is investing €1bn to convert a former paper machine at its Oulu site in Finland into an €800m a year high-volume consumer board production line.

Leon Wilson, director of Revolution Print in Ballarat, will share his company's journey into digital labels at the LIVE event on digitally printed packaging, taking place in Melbourne on 9 November.

Esko and GMG have partnered to deliver a new connection between GMG’s profiling and colour prediction solution, GMG OpenColor, and Esko’s native prepress editing software, ArtPro+.

Paper packaging converter and printer Detpak has partnered with Foodland, to redesign core bakery packaging products, reducing single use plastic in a move to fibre-based packaging.

Digital packaging print operation ePac has made the biggest HP Indigo order ever taken, specifying 50 new presses, which will be installed at new and existing plants around the world, including in ANZ.