InfoTrends’ Survey: Package Printers’ Perspectives On Digital Printing

By Bob Leahey

Inks for Digital Printing

By Ken Kisner, INX Digital

Digital printing is a hot commodity and some of the advancements that are addressing the needs of converters are in fact the focus of ink manufacturers. There are four areas where the impact of digital printing is making a huge difference: corrugated, folding carton, plastic, and label markets.

Corrugated is being driven by a massive leap with point-of-purchase (POP) into the traditional market. Highly automated and very fast machines that use two ink technologies are leading this effort. The two dominant ink technologies are UV curable and a water-based ink, which includes a polymer that is giving it extreme durability. The speed and quality of several leading printer manufacturers’ presses are impressive and meet all of the needs to print POP displays.

There is no doubt that inkjet is advancing with secondary packaging for folding carton work. Inkjet at 600 and 1,200 dpi is meeting all demands as the industry goes beyond prototyping by moving into the test marketing and micro-marketing of personal products. Some beverage companies also are exploring this area.

A personal care product company recently introduced a new item to a test audience of 10,000 adults before taking it to mass production. They took this approach because the fight for shelf space at chain supermarkets, drugstores, and big-box retailers is very competitive and expensive. Digital imaging gives them the ability to customize and reach a very specific demographic.

When you talk about packaging film, there is still a barrier to getting an inkjet or UV curable ink on flexible packaging like a Doritos chips bag. There are some formulation issues that need to be addressed involving migration. The ink industry is making strides towards developing safer products for the packaging industry, and there needs to be custom formulations for individual needs to meet specific regulatory requirements for food packaging.

The use of water-based technology in plastics is growing and more developments will occur in 2013, but will be more pronounced with labels. The industry has accepted digital printing and there are stronger opportunities for labels with water-based and UV curable inks. Inkjet is firmly established and remains strong, and print shops that are using it are now better off. Digital has allowed them to reduce inventory since there is no need for long runs.

Ken Kisner is a 25-year industry professional and president of INX Digital International Co., a global manufacturer of inkjet inks and a supplier of printing parts and related services.

InfoTrends recently surveyed converters of labels, folding cartons, and flexible packaging in North America, ultimately to ask a few overarching questions: What do converters want when it comes to print technology? What are their pain points? How can digital printing presses help? Our survey, of course, asked many other questions, but those are the key ones. This month we offer some of the answers from the report's Web survey of 228 total converters (104 label converter, 67 folding carton converters, and 57 flexible packaging converters), and our personal interviews with 35 of them. First, two summary points:

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