Certified to Compete

By Linda Casey

As manufacturers, label and package printing companies have become intimately familiar with instability. Uncertainty, whether stemming from inconsistent trade policies or shifting environmental regulations, impacts not only the businesses of converters, but also brands. As a result, printed packaging buyers are hungry for greater consistency and less risk. To satisfy this hunger, converters are increasingly looking to certification.

“We’re seeing a lot more interest in certification because it reduces friction across the entire supply chain,” says LeAnn Chuboff, vice president of technical affairs at the Safe Quality Food Institute. “Buyers want fewer surprises, fewer custom audits, and less paperwork. Certification offers proof. It answers those questions up front.”

This proof is increasingly valuable to CPG companies dealing with so many unknowns — ranging from label and package substrate availability and food labeling standards to end-of-life management expectations for spent packaging and products.

Certifications signal to brands which packaged goods partners are serious about managing risk, and they can serve as a shortcut for converters seeking to gain the trust of prospective and existing customers — which can reduce the friction and time from pitch to first job. Sometimes, label and package printing companies can even bypass extended audits, paperwork-intensive vendor evaluations, or complicated quality control reviews for unknown standards if said converter has the proper certifications.

“One of the biggest benefits of certification is transparency,” Chuboff says. “Whether you’re selling labels, boxes, or films, SQF certification helps you demonstrate to your customers that you have systems in place to manage contamination risk, label accuracy, and material safety — and that those systems have been verified by a globally recognized, third-party program.”

While SQF addresses food safety and supply chain compliance, there are other certifications — such as G7+ and FIRST — that target print quality, process control, and color consistency, which are all critical to maintaining brand image and consumer trust. Jordan Gorski, vice president of global standards and certifications at PRINTING United Alliance, views this shift as a response to modern print realities.

“G7+ is really about equipping printers with a calibration methodology that works across all platforms, not just commercial print,” Gorski says. “It’s helping companies deliver consistent, accurate color regardless of substrate, press, or print technology. And when brands know they’re going to get the same results every time, that builds trust.”

For printed packaging and label buyers juggling multiple SKUs, campaigns, or regional variants, this kind of guarantee for consistency is increasingly becoming table stakes. A label or package converter might — and probably already should — know packaged goods companies depend on color precision to protect brand equity. Certification offers third-party validation that the label or package manufacturer can meet these demands.

“Converters have told us that having G7 or G7+ certification in place makes a big difference when working with brands or agencies,” Gorski says. “It shortens conversations about color alignment and performance expectations, because you’ve already proven you meet a known industry standard.” For these converters, certification becomes an investment in efficiency.

Calibrated for Confidence

Chasing consistent color across substrates and presses becomes more complex in markets dominated by short runs and high-pressure approvals. As brands continue to respond to uncertainty in their own manufacturing environments, short-run markets will continue to dominate converters’ mindshare and, increasingly, revenue streams.

To meet this challenge, more printers are adopting the G7+ calibration methodology, the latest evolution of the G7 system. G7+ retains the foundational principles of G7 — gray balance and tonality — while introducing more calibration logic, broader technology compatibility, and improved results in high-coverage and wide-gamut print environments.

“The main difference between G7 and G7+ is that G7+ is designed for the print environments we’re working in right now,” says Gorski. “G7 was originally developed for offset, and while it was later adapted to other technologies, G7+ starts from a place of being truly print agnostic.”

That’s especially important in package and label printing. Converters might run flexo for one job, digital for the next, and offset or gravure after. G7+ gives teams a neutral calibration target that works across substrates, systems, and suppliers. Whether the product is a folding carton, shrink sleeve, or pouch, G7+ ensures the color gray is a visually consistent target that works across substrates, systems, and suppliers — and with it, the rest of the color spectrum becomes far more predictable.

Proven Concept for Complex Print Environments

The importance of gray as a visual consistency target might sound familiar. It’s a defining characteristic of G7. “The Value of G7 to Print Service Providers,” a white paper published in 2017 by Idealliance, now part of PRINTING United Alliance, describes G7 not as a color management system, but as a gray management system.

In G7, grays — represented by a combination of CMY or CMYK values — calibrate two key attributes: tonality (lightness and contrast) and balance (neutrality). This gray-based approach simplifies device calibration and reduces the frequency of full ICC re-profiling for many printing companies.

This approach has long been proven valuable in both commercial and package printing environments. In the aforementioned white paper, The Standard Group, a Reading, Pennsylvania-based package and commercial print service provider, reported that rework due to color variation dropped below 0.5% after adopting G7. At the same time, makeready times were reduced by two-thirds. Scott Reighard, who is a business adviser at MANTEC and was COO of The Standard Group when this white paper was published in 2017, said, “To go back to the traditional way would be like asking us to run four-color process jobs one color at a time.”

The Rise of High-Density Smoothing

A strength of the G7+ system is that it builds on this proven neutral calibration approach while addressing some of legacy G7’s known limitations. For example, G7+ uses an updated gray balance algorithm to deliver a more visually neutral appearance, even on strongly colored substrates.

The result is a universal calibration language for the printing industry — regardless of whether the printing is done flexo, offset, or digital — and that’s important, Gorski explains.

“Brands don’t care what press you used,” he says. “They care that their orange is still their orange; that their product still looks like their product on shelf. G7+ helps you deliver on that.”

Another opportunity lies in addressing one of the most persistent challenges in high-coverage printing — the unpredictability of dense CMYK builds. That’s where G7+ introduces a breakthrough: high-density smoothing (HDS), a core enhancement built specifically for ink-heavy modern workflows.

“G7+ helps manage those areas of the image that G7 didn’t handle quite as effectively,” says Gorski. “It’s all about giving printers more control and better visual consistency on every type of job.”

HDS improves stability and visual consistency in areas where rich blacks, dark gradients, or vibrant colors tend to break down or become mottled. This stability is crucial when converters use wide-gamut printing on challenging substrates — regardless of whether the press is flexo, offset, digital, or hybrid. Some of these challenging substrates include films, foils, and coated paperboards, which are all commonly used in label and package printing.

Furthermore, high ink coverage is common in label and package printing, whether it’s used in printing a label with a solid blue background, or a flexible pouch with artwork printed in color over reverse white. The interaction between high ink density and the surface energy of challenging substrates introduces variability that can quickly lead to expensive waste.

HDS minimizes these issues by refining how calibration curves behave in high-density tonal ranges. Instead of flattening or clipping data, the updated logic maintains smooth gradations and an improved neutral balance, even in challenging shadow areas. For converters, this translates into reduced makeready time, more accurate proof-to-press alignment, increased confidence in press-to-press consistency, and greater flexibility when working with challenging materials.

G7+ Certification Paths for Individuals, Facilities

But this article is about certification — not systems — so let’s get back to how custom-printed label and package manufacturers can certify their ability to implement, manage, and optimize G7+ color calibration workflows. Like much in business, this starts with people.

The G7+ Expert Certification validates a person’s ability to implement, manage, and optimize G7+ color calibration workflows. PRINTING United Alliance designed this certification path to be accessible, flexible, and meet professionals where they are, whether they work in prepress, production, quality assurance, or color management. There are no prerequisites, though a strong working knowledge of print workflows is recommended.

“Whether you’re coming from production, prepress, brand management, or sales, the training is structured to help you understand not just how to calibrate, but why it matters,” Gorski explains.

Training is available through three formats: in-person workshops, live virtual sessions, and on-demand courses on iLEARNING+.

“We know that everyone learns differently and works differently, so we’ve designed G7+ training to meet people where they are,” Gorski says.

The Value of a Shared Language

Once certified, G7+ Experts are licensed to submit qualification packages on behalf of their facilities and often serve as the in-house authority on visual consistency and color process control. For example, the G7 Master Facility certification signals that a site meets rigorous calibration, visual appearance, and quality management criteria based on the G7 methodology.

The G7 Master Facility designation provides third-party confirmation that a label or package converter can deliver consistent color output across devices, substrates, and runs — and do so reliably over time.

For packaging converters competing for CPG accounts, it’s a straightforward way to communicate operational maturity and commitment to quality. With G7 Master Facility status, converters demonstrate the ability to maintain control of color performance across shifts, presses, substrates, and workflows.

The ability to include G7 Master Facility status in sales decks, RFP packets, or even onboarding documents also helps reinforce the company’s commitment to reliability, predictability, and process control.

It can also provide a bridge between technical and business stakeholders. Sales staff are assured of quick and smooth onboarding for new clients. Printed packaging buyers get tighter alignment to brand standards. Quality and customer service teams at converters see fewer complaints. Press operations gain confidence that they’re producing what was promised.

Food-Safe, Brand-Safe, Market-Ready

When a printed label or package will be used to protect or present food or beverages, brands, consumers, and regulators demand one thing first — safety. Food-and-beverage is a crucial market served by label and package converters. In just online consumer packaged goods sales, food and beverage represent 44% of total global consumer packaged goods sales, according to Towards Packaging. Furthermore, just this part of the food-and-beverage market is projected to generate $26.74 billion in global revenue by 2034.

For label and package manufacturers serving the food industry, a widely accepted mark of operational and food safety integrity is the Safe Quality Food (SQF) Code certification.

The most widely applicable standard for label and package printing companies is Edition 9 of the SQF Institute’s “Food Safety Code for Manufacture of Food Packaging,” and the most applicable food safety category in that code is FSC 27: Manufacture of Food Packaging. It’s designed specifically for packaging that has direct or indirect contact with food — everything from pressure-sensitive labels and shrink sleeves to corrugated boxes, paperboard cartons, and multilayer films. As of mid-2025, more than 1,100 companies hold an active SQF Audit Certificate under this code.

“FSC 27 is the most common entry point for printers and converters,” says Chuboff. “But we also see some companies pair it with FSC 26, which covers storage and distribution, especially if the same site handles warehousing or shipping along with manufacturing.”

This flexibility is by design, according to Margaret E. Core, vice president of marketing at FMI, the parent organization of the SQF Institute.

Core acknowledges that flexibility comes with a need for clarification, so the SQF Institute offers a free Code Selector tool at sqfi.com to help companies determine which certification codes best fit their operations. The selector asks a few facility-specific questions, then recommends the appropriate code or combination of codes to discuss with an SQF certification body — the keyword being “discuss.” Expounding on FSC 25, Chuboff says, “It’s a helpful starting point, but we always encourage companies to follow up with our client services teams to validate the fit.”

Embedded Safety Into Your Business

The upcoming Edition 10 reflects a shift from box-checking compliance to proactive, culture-driven risk management.

“This edition reflects how our industry has evolved,” Chuboff explains. “It’s not just about following a list of technical requirements. It’s about embedding food safety into every part of the business, from production floor to the executive team.”

One of the most notable additions in Edition 10 is the requirement for a food safety culture assessment plan that includes documented programs for communication, employee training, structured feedback, and ongoing improvement.

“Food safety isn’t the sole responsibility of the QA team anymore,” Chuboff says. “It has to be part of how everyone works, including press operators, maintenance staff, and supervisors.”

Another key change is the introduction of formal change-management requirements. Any shift, such as a new ink, substrate, or revised cleaning protocol, must be documented along with its potential impact on food safety. The goal is to create a clear chain of accountability and reduce the risk of unintentional contamination.

Edition 10 also strengthens expectations around risk-based environmental monitoring. Instead of applying the same protocols sitewide, companies are expected to assess and mitigate risks specific to their operations, whether that means identifying higher-risk zones in converting areas or validating sanitation methods for specialty materials.

“All of these updates make the certification process more effective and more aligned with the real-world conditions that package printers face,” Chuboff says.

Certified sites are also audited on specifics such as ink and adhesive safety, substrate traceability, labeling accuracy, and allergen control. These elements are often overlooked in informal audits, but can significantly impact food safety and brand integrity if not correctly managed.

“SQF certification provides verifiable proof, not just a claim,” Chuboff says. “It shows you’ve invested in food safety systems, and that you’re aligned with how food companies themselves manage risk.”

Skills That Stick

Delivering on safety and compliance earns trust from customers, but sustaining that trust depends on having skilled, confident people running your production floor. And according to Kenny Tucker, director of technical education at the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA), that’s where the FIRST Certification Program comes in. He emphasizes that individuals, not organizations, earn FIRST certifications, and this distinction helps converters position themselves as employers that invest in people — a critical differentiator when competing for individuals seeking careers versus jobs.

According to Tucker, who cited LinkedIn’s “2023 Workplace Learning Report” during our conversation, 93% of organizations are concerned about employee retention, and 94% of workers say learning opportunities would keep them in a role.

“Training is no longer just about checking a box,” Tucker says. “It’s one of the most effective strategies you can use to keep people engaged, reduce turnover, and create a culture of continuous improvement.” In short, employer-provided training sends a powerful message to existing and potential employees: You matter here.

FTA offers certification through on-demand training, live virtual courses, and in-person instruction — including on-site workshops. This training empowers people who work with flexographic printing technology to deliver predictable, high-quality results rooted in repeatable process control — and highlights them as the printing professionals they are.

“Converters don’t have time to take their best operators off their floor for a week of training,” Tucker says. “We’ve designed our programs so they can learn in manageable increments — without sacrificing production.”

To make FIRST training even more accessible, Tucker encourages converters to consider requesting funds from state and federal workforce training reimbursement programs, noting that several FTA members have found the process of securing funds for manufacturing education to be fairly easy. And from carpet to cement, label and package printing company employees can benefit from these training programs.

“We offer three certification tracks: Prepress, Press Operator, and Implementation Specialist,” Tucker says. “They all begin with the same Level 1 training, and then participants branch into more specialized instruction depending on their role or career goals.”

Each pathway is built to reflect the practical demands of flexo print production. Prepress training emphasizes brand intent and file readiness. The Press Operator track focuses on makeready, plate mounting, and production control. The Implementation Specialist path helps team leads manage performance across departments and ensure alignment from order entry to delivery.

Tucker notes that FIRST helps prevent breakdowns in communication across departments — whether prepress, color targeting, or plate mounting — that can quickly derail a flexo printing job. To emphasize his point, Tucker shares a real-world example: Don Shoberg, printing graphics manager at Hood Packaging, Sibley, Iowa, saw a 30% drop in customer complaints after training 11 employees.

Unlocking Your Edge

From food safety and color accuracy to operator training and onboarding transparency, certification programs now serve as strategic enablers for converters. Certification programs improve performance, reduce risk, and, perhaps most importantly, help print service providers build trust with brands, partners, and employees. Combined, this makes third-party certifications a competitive necessity if you want your company to grow, lead, and win.