Shelf Space: So you went to a trade show. What did you see?

With respect to presses, there are compelling options from conventional and digital vendors alike. On the digital side, look for more speed, more substrate flexibility, and in some cases additional print widths. Digital presses may still only account for a fraction of the packaging market, but this is likely to change over the next two to three years as speeds increase and as more presses come to offer inline finishing capabilities. One big change for digital—and we'll see more of this at the fall shows—is digital presses intended for flexible packaging. Already happening on a small scale, the advent of such machines may be leading to a kind of tipping point at which digital presses gain more traction in the packaging space.