John Penhallow05.26.22
After 112 days, the end of the strike at UPM’s Finnish mills gives Europe’s label converters more elbow-room to worry about other things. UPM’s welcome announcement implies that it’s “business as usual” since the ending of the strike in mid-April. Europe’s label converters, who are a mistrustful lot, take this with several pinches of salt. The paper mills may shortly be up and running normally, but before new labelstock production can flow down to slake the thirst of Europe’s converters, several weeks will no doubt elapse.
And since life is unfair, as soon as production starts to normalize, the big brand owners will all be shouting to be served first. Avery Dennison has just announced a €60 million investment project for its plants in Champ-sur-Drac (France) and Luxembourg, but by the time these come on stream the current shortages will be a distant memory.
We hope the things to worry about don’t only concern labelstock. A Covid lockdown in parts of China, plus clogged and expensive shipping routes, are putting many electronic components in short supply. No use having a warehouse full of labelstock if you can’t get parts for your presses.
Equipment manufacturers A B Graphic and Omet, as well as several big labelstock suppliers, were to be found perched on this bandwagon. It’s too soon to gauge the success of this initiative, held at Durst’s headquarters in the Italian Alps, but at least label converters who attended were able to admire the romantic mountains of a kind not found in places like, shall we say, Chicago (or Brussels, if it comes to it).
But the Day of the Big European Shows is not over. Take, for example, Anuga Foodtec, the four-day show in Cologne featuring equipment for the food and drink industries. This show, which closed on April 29, had over a thousand exhibitors, including label converters like etikett.de and PP Label Solutions, and some 25,000 visitors, over half of them coming from outside Germany.
Looking ahead, the Paris cosmetics packaging show ADF/PCD is apparently still on schedule to open on June 29 with 600 exhibitors already committed, and Pharmapack (end of May) is apparently steaming ahead. And for those with more liquid tastes, ProWein in Dusseldorf expects no less than 5,500 exhibitors, with a special feature on champagne.
Reports on new press sales in England seem to be few and far between of late – or maybe it’s just the English talent for discretion. UK-based narrow web converter Daymark Labels has installed a Mark Andy Digital Pro 3 digital press and Evolution Series E5 flexo press at its production facility in Hartlebury, Worcestershire. These are medium- or entry-level presses, but print quality and speed have both exceeded expectations, according to Daymark’s general manager Kevin Palmer.
Geostick in the Netherlands has traditionally opted mainly for Nilpeter presses, but its latest order is for a Digital Master 340 from Bobst. This six-color hybrid line offers flexo and UV inkjet plus inline converting and will shortly be installed at Geostick’s Digital Printing Center in Uithoorn, the Netherlands. Geostick’s enthusiasm for digital labels goes back a long way. Its head office is close to the vast European flower wholesale market, and the company’s headache was supplying labels to dealers who never knew from one day to the next what flower labels they needed and how many.
Company owner-manager Peter Berveling’s decision to invest early in digital printing brought dividends – as did his company’s involvement in the first digital labels for Coca-Cola, using HP Indigo equipment. Geostick is also the only, or one of the very few, label converters to have a fully equipped in-house bar for use by staff, customers and even the occasional visiting journalist.
Faubel in Germany specializes in the pharmaceutical label business: its new Gallus Labelmaster, installed in January, is used mainly for multi-layer labels. Frank Ludwig, managing director of the Faubel Group, explains the reasons for the investment: “Our labels and markings are produced using mainly flexo. Last year, we decided to replace an older machine in the roll production department. It was important to us that the new Labelmaster could also run multi-layer labels.”
Another Gallus Labelmaster is on order for Nordvalls, with whom Gallus has worked closely for many years. Since 1965 this Swedish converter has bought no less than 24 Gallus presses to date. With food and beverage jobs representing 50% of the work for Nordvalls, the new Gallus Labelmaster was installed at its Sjöbo-based facility in April 2022.
If Gallus is doing OK, its parent company Heidelberg, once the sick man of Europe’s printing world, is enjoying an almost miraculous recovery. The group’s sales in year 2021-22 were up 14% to €2.183 billion, with a healthy EBITDA margin of 7.3%.
Optimum Group Germany’s managing director Andre Prophitius comments, “With the acquisition of Etiket Schiller, the German part of our group will be further strengthened by creative and technical capabilities that we did not already have. Etiket Schiller has a strong commercial and technical profile, and an impressive customer base. We look forward to working with the owners, who are all continuing in their existing roles.”
All4Labels is another group growing rapidly by acquisition. Based in Hamburg, Germany, group revenue now exceeds €600 million. With 33 production sites in Europe, Latin America, Africa and China, this heavyweight of the label world has only recently crossed the English Channel to expand its European network by acquiring Leeds-based Olympus Print Group, which becomes the group’s first
UK subsidiary.
Olympus offers label solutions for a range of markets, with a focus on the personal care as well as wine and spirits, and beer industries. The former owners will become co-shareholders of the All4Labels Group and will continue to manage their business. All4Labels has adopted the same strategy with the recently acquired Grafiche Pizzi, which, with its production of brochures and folding cartons for the pharma sector, will expand and complement the group’s presence in this vibrant business sector.
In January 2022, the German town of Tübingen introduced a tax on all non-returnable packaging. To the annoyance of ecologists, the regional court has just declared this tax unconstitutional. The immensely complex issue of “good” or “bad” packaging has led to the creation of several agencies able to give seals of approval to manufacturers. One such is Flustix in Germany. For a fee, Flustix will test products, their labels and packaging. On the new UK tax, Flustix’s boss Malte Biss has doubts, particularly as it appears to penalize bioplastics, which though generally classed as “good,” are nonetheless hard to recycle.
Only printers and paper makers seem to profit from this totally profligate non-digital democracy. But at least nobody challenged the result, so maybe it’s got something going for it.
And since life is unfair, as soon as production starts to normalize, the big brand owners will all be shouting to be served first. Avery Dennison has just announced a €60 million investment project for its plants in Champ-sur-Drac (France) and Luxembourg, but by the time these come on stream the current shortages will be a distant memory.
We hope the things to worry about don’t only concern labelstock. A Covid lockdown in parts of China, plus clogged and expensive shipping routes, are putting many electronic components in short supply. No use having a warehouse full of labelstock if you can’t get parts for your presses.
To show, or not to show
As the future of major trade shows hangs in the balance, the label world’s equipment manufacturers are unsure which way to jump. Some had forsaken Labelexpo Europe even before it was canceled. Many other traditional exhibitors know the importance of seeing, touching and hearing the machine they might want to buy. That explains the rush to organize Open Days, or even mini-shows such as the one in late April hosted by Durst.Equipment manufacturers A B Graphic and Omet, as well as several big labelstock suppliers, were to be found perched on this bandwagon. It’s too soon to gauge the success of this initiative, held at Durst’s headquarters in the Italian Alps, but at least label converters who attended were able to admire the romantic mountains of a kind not found in places like, shall we say, Chicago (or Brussels, if it comes to it).
But the Day of the Big European Shows is not over. Take, for example, Anuga Foodtec, the four-day show in Cologne featuring equipment for the food and drink industries. This show, which closed on April 29, had over a thousand exhibitors, including label converters like etikett.de and PP Label Solutions, and some 25,000 visitors, over half of them coming from outside Germany.
Looking ahead, the Paris cosmetics packaging show ADF/PCD is apparently still on schedule to open on June 29 with 600 exhibitors already committed, and Pharmapack (end of May) is apparently steaming ahead. And for those with more liquid tastes, ProWein in Dusseldorf expects no less than 5,500 exhibitors, with a special feature on champagne.
Label press sales recovering well
For non-Polish speakers, Aniflex Glowacka Wojtaszek is not a name that rolls off the tongue, but this group, with 250 employees and rapidly rising sales, has installed a Panther UV inkjet press from Xeikon. According to co-owner Maciej Wojtaszek, “The investment in the new Xeikon press has significantly increased the technological capacity of our plant and allowed us to exploit the sales potential for low- and medium-volume orders, as well as helped us cut delivery times for our production of PS labels, shrink sleeves and flexible packaging.”Reports on new press sales in England seem to be few and far between of late – or maybe it’s just the English talent for discretion. UK-based narrow web converter Daymark Labels has installed a Mark Andy Digital Pro 3 digital press and Evolution Series E5 flexo press at its production facility in Hartlebury, Worcestershire. These are medium- or entry-level presses, but print quality and speed have both exceeded expectations, according to Daymark’s general manager Kevin Palmer.
Geostick in the Netherlands has traditionally opted mainly for Nilpeter presses, but its latest order is for a Digital Master 340 from Bobst. This six-color hybrid line offers flexo and UV inkjet plus inline converting and will shortly be installed at Geostick’s Digital Printing Center in Uithoorn, the Netherlands. Geostick’s enthusiasm for digital labels goes back a long way. Its head office is close to the vast European flower wholesale market, and the company’s headache was supplying labels to dealers who never knew from one day to the next what flower labels they needed and how many.
Company owner-manager Peter Berveling’s decision to invest early in digital printing brought dividends – as did his company’s involvement in the first digital labels for Coca-Cola, using HP Indigo equipment. Geostick is also the only, or one of the very few, label converters to have a fully equipped in-house bar for use by staff, customers and even the occasional visiting journalist.
Faubel in Germany specializes in the pharmaceutical label business: its new Gallus Labelmaster, installed in January, is used mainly for multi-layer labels. Frank Ludwig, managing director of the Faubel Group, explains the reasons for the investment: “Our labels and markings are produced using mainly flexo. Last year, we decided to replace an older machine in the roll production department. It was important to us that the new Labelmaster could also run multi-layer labels.”
Another Gallus Labelmaster is on order for Nordvalls, with whom Gallus has worked closely for many years. Since 1965 this Swedish converter has bought no less than 24 Gallus presses to date. With food and beverage jobs representing 50% of the work for Nordvalls, the new Gallus Labelmaster was installed at its Sjöbo-based facility in April 2022.
If Gallus is doing OK, its parent company Heidelberg, once the sick man of Europe’s printing world, is enjoying an almost miraculous recovery. The group’s sales in year 2021-22 were up 14% to €2.183 billion, with a healthy EBITDA margin of 7.3%.
More and more consolidation
Optimum Group, which is based in the Netherlands, has increased its presence in the German label market by its recent acquisition of Etiket Schiller, bringing the group’s total to 17 companies, mostly in Benelux and Scandinavia.Optimum Group Germany’s managing director Andre Prophitius comments, “With the acquisition of Etiket Schiller, the German part of our group will be further strengthened by creative and technical capabilities that we did not already have. Etiket Schiller has a strong commercial and technical profile, and an impressive customer base. We look forward to working with the owners, who are all continuing in their existing roles.”
All4Labels is another group growing rapidly by acquisition. Based in Hamburg, Germany, group revenue now exceeds €600 million. With 33 production sites in Europe, Latin America, Africa and China, this heavyweight of the label world has only recently crossed the English Channel to expand its European network by acquiring Leeds-based Olympus Print Group, which becomes the group’s first
UK subsidiary.
Olympus offers label solutions for a range of markets, with a focus on the personal care as well as wine and spirits, and beer industries. The former owners will become co-shareholders of the All4Labels Group and will continue to manage their business. All4Labels has adopted the same strategy with the recently acquired Grafiche Pizzi, which, with its production of brochures and folding cartons for the pharma sector, will expand and complement the group’s presence in this vibrant business sector.
What, oh what, is an ecological plastic?
Recyclable, compostable, sustainable… definitions vary, and now governments are barging in to tax “nasty” plastics. Starting on April 1, British producers or importers must pay a “virtue tax” of £200 ($240) per ton on any plastic packaging material containing less than 30% recycled materials.In January 2022, the German town of Tübingen introduced a tax on all non-returnable packaging. To the annoyance of ecologists, the regional court has just declared this tax unconstitutional. The immensely complex issue of “good” or “bad” packaging has led to the creation of several agencies able to give seals of approval to manufacturers. One such is Flustix in Germany. For a fee, Flustix will test products, their labels and packaging. On the new UK tax, Flustix’s boss Malte Biss has doubts, particularly as it appears to penalize bioplastics, which though generally classed as “good,” are nonetheless hard to recycle.
Candidates’ fight is printers’ delight
In France, 85% of people aged 18-65 have access to broadband. Nonetheless when it comes to elections and election campaigns, paper is king. In the recent presidential elections, every voter received a (usually glossy) prospectus from every candidate – and in the first-round voting there were 12 of them. Multiply by 49 million voters and what do you get? A bill for…€65 million, that’s what you get. And mostly paid for by the government (i.e. taxpayers). That doesn’t include the second-round voting (only two candidates, so a big saving) nor the voting slips and the tiny blue envelopes we have to put them in. Nor the posters that go up in every town and village and in front of every polling station.Only printers and paper makers seem to profit from this totally profligate non-digital democracy. But at least nobody challenged the result, so maybe it’s got something going for it.