Melbourne-based flexible packaging print specialist, Filton Packaging, has acquired Australian Contour Packaging, in order to meet growing demand from the country's major food producers.

Fibre-based packaging is set for sustained growth as a key material, with corrugated, folding carton, liquid paperboard, flexible paper and moulded fibre all forecast for a significant upswing.

Innovative box supplier Pakko has invested in a Hanway HighJet 2500 digital inkjet printer, supplied by Kissel + Wolf, with the company entering new markets following the installation.

Xeikon and paper manufacturer Sappi have successfully teamed up to combine the barrier properties of Sappi’s packaging papers with Xeikon’s UV-cured Titon toner.

Trimatt Systems’ ColourStar AQ V colour digital packaging printing system, has won the coveted Mice Product Innovation Award for coffee accessories, from the capital of coffee, Melbourne.

Local supplier Graffica is now providing entire inline post-press solutions for folding carton, including a Wonderjet digital print system.

Adelaide-based innovative food packaging and print solutions company, Detpak, has been named fast food giant KFC’s Supplier of the Year for Australia. KFC serves in excess of two million meals a week.

The world’s biggest offset press manufacturer, Heidelberg, says it has seen a good start to the new financial year, thanks to the recovery in Asia, and continuing growth in the packaging segment.

Orora Beverage is installing the region’s first Velox digital, high-speed, full-colour, can printing system, enabling customisation of can design and decoration, and fast speed to market. It is keeping its offset litho can printing presses, and will run both side-by-side.

Sustainability demands will push surging sales of cartonboard, microflute and miniflute packaging over the next five years, according to Smithers, providing strong growth prospects for carton printing, with packaging cartonboard predicted to grow by an attractive 35 per cent to 2028.

Flexible packaging operation ePac has launched the ePac Born Green educational campaign, to address what it says is the critical need for its customer base to become knowledgeable and confident about their own sustainability goals.

The move to sustainable packaging is set to be turbo-charged, with the federal government taking the landmark decision to step in and legislate on packaging waste.

Press giant Heidelberg is launching a new webfed flexo carton printing press, the Boardmaster, which it says will meet the rapid pivot by brands away from plastics to fibre-based packaging.

Bobst has enhanced its middle-range folder-gluers with the implementation of the Sphere machine interface, which it says is a decisive step into the future of folding-gluing.

The joint venture Koenig & Bauer Durst says its first VariJet 106 B1 inkjet folding carton press is installed at a beta site in Europe, and will be running by the end of the month.

Bobst has acquired 70 per cent of the equity of Dücker Robotics, which specialises in the use of robots in both loading and palletising in the corrugated board sector and in the folding carton industry.