Readers of L&NW will remember reports of Benny Landa’s very considerable media splash at the drupa 2012 show in Dusseldorf. The Nanographic digital press was about to take the printing world by storm – and it may yet do so. But as one observer cynically remarked just recently, “The storm is a long time coming.”  When the Dusseldorf jamboree opens on May 31 of this year, Landa Digital Printing (LDP) will be showing four models, including one web-fed press. This is a mid-web machine mainly designed for flexible packaging. It will be remembered that after drupa 2012, Landa announced that a whole slew of label and package printers had paid their deposit so as to be among the first to use these revolutionary presses. Four years later, they are still waiting, and it is reasonable to ask why. At a press conference in March of this year, Benny Landa admitted that his company had “underestimated the enormity of the challenge.” Beta testing of the new presses will now not be before some time in 2017, but at drupa, the Landa booth (Hall 9 A73) will be twice as big as in 2012. At around 9,000 square feet, the booth will feature a “theater” even bigger than before.

The magic of the Landa name will probably ensure a good flow of visitors, and the man himself may well choose to quote Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” But soon after that, Edison made the breakthrough that lit up the whole world. Let’s wish Mr. Landa a similar breakthrough. Soon.

Another breakthrough that seems to be taking longer than expected comes from Xeikon, now part of Flint Group. The Belgian digital press manufacturer has for many years led the way with dry toner technology, and its digital narrow web presses are generally reckoned as number two in world markets, after HP Indigo. At drupa 2012, Xeikon presented a one-color demonstration press using liquid toner technology. The project was only at the development stage four years ago, and to date no presses of this type have been sold.

At this year’s drupa, Xeikon is back (in Hall 8A – B20) with what the company says is a commercially viable liquid toner press called Trillium One, developed jointly with Miyakoshi. The process is a kind of digital offset, not dissimilar to the technology used by Indigo. An intermediate roller deposits a very thin layer (4-6 microns for a four-layer thickness) of toner to the substrate, and at the same time the carrier fluid, instead of wetting the substrate, is absorbed back into the roller. If this new press lives up to expectations (running at 200 fpm or 60m/m, 4/4 colors at 1200 dpi) it will be one of the digital highlights of this year’s show.

Firepower from Heidelberg/Gallus
Nobody needs reminding that Heidelberg, the world’s biggest printing press manufacturer, caught a severe and nearly fatal cold during the economic downturn of 2008-2009.  And if anyone doubts that the patient is now fighting fit again, they can convince themselves at drupa where the German Giant will be occupying the whole of Hall 1, just as it did in pre-crash days. All Heidelberg’s digital presses, including the Gallus DCS 340, have now been rebranded as the “Fire” line. So the hybrid label press, which will be demonstrated at drupa, is now re-named as the Gallus Labelfire 340. Several presses of this type have been delivered to customers in Europe and are fully operational.

Many exhibitors prefer to keep their latest innovations under wraps until the first day of a major show. Not so the Italian press maker Omet, who in mid-April held an event “When Digital Meets Flexo” to get its shot in first. The novelty at the Omet event in Lecco, northern Italy, was the demonstration of a hybrid press, the XFlex X6 Jetplus, using Kyocera printheads in a configuration developed jointly with Domino. Visitors to the event were able to see several demonstrations, including a complex hybrid print job with flexo, digital and foil application. Job change speeds were particularly impressive. This is not a radically new development for Omet (a similar hybrid press was shown on its booth at drupa 2012), but could be a winner in the now rather crowded contest for the best hybrid label press. Visitors to drupa 2016 will search the Omet booth in vain for the new hybrid. Omet will however be showing several offset and flexo presses on its own booth (Hall 3 D90) and in Benny Landa’s theater in Hall 9.

UK-based flexo press manufacturer Edale (which also makes a hybrid press, in cooperation with FFEI) will also be present at the Dusseldorf show (Booth 12 B05). The manufacturer is not showing any machinery this time, having decided to focus on promoting its Design & Consultancy Service. This is in line with its strategy of solving specific problems with customized converting equipment (alongside manufacturing its successful FL-3 and FL-5 presses). Edale’s managing director James Boughton and export director Bernhard Grob will be among the company’s seasoned experts on hand during drupa.

Rotatek (Booth 4 C39) is one of only two Spanish manufacturers of narrow web presses, and the company was among the first to jump on the hybrid bandwagon. Bibiana Rodriguez, CEO of this family-run business, told your correspondent, “At drupa we will show a new concept of Hybrid Printing Machine, which is totally innovative for printing film, paperboard and labels – all in one. This is based on our 20 years’ experience of developing hybrid presses. We are convinced that our solutions combining different inline printing and finishing technologies – offset, flexo, rotogravure, silks creen and digital – are the answer to the most demanding requirements of our market.”

French exhibitors at drupa will be heavily outnumbered by their German, Italian and British competitors, so a special mention must be made of MGI Digital Technology (Booth 5 D21). MGI’s specialty is digital varnishing and foiling. This year it will show its JetVarnish 3D Evolution (an improved version of the equipment seen at drupa 2012). The machinery at this year’s show is sheetfed, but MGI’s communications manager Laurent Boumendil told your correspondent: “MGI has traditionally been in the sheetfed business, but we are now diversifying into reel-to-reel.”  Watch this space.

Not all the leading narrow web equipment manufacturers will be present at drupa: visitors will search in vain for Mark Andy and Nilpeter, to name but two. Another press manufacturer plans to be absent-but-present. The head office of MPS is in Arnhem, just an hour’s drive up the Autobahn from Dusseldorf, and the canny Dutchmen (and women) of MPS will be operating a daily shuttle service from the show to their plant, where visitors will see the MPS range of narrow web flexo and hybrid presses.

The organizers of drupa have been saying rude things under their breath about this stratagem, but it seems there’s not much they can do about it.

More from Korea
Scarcely a week goes by without news of another digital label press being launched into European markets. This week’s manufacturer of the week is Dilli, a South Korean manufacturer better known for its wide web equipment. Although Dilli exhibited at Labelexpo Europe in both 2013 and 2015, it has kept a low profile.

This is now going to change, according to Serge Vincart, who is in charge of Dilli’s newly created European office in Mons, Belgium. He says, “For 15 years our presses have been sold exclusively under another internationally known brand. We now have our own sales office, demo and training center. We also have a booth at drupa.”

The Dilli Neo-Mercury digital inkjet label presses come in two widths (210 and 350 mm), and for those who can’t make it to Dusseldorf, two label converters – in Sweden and Italy – will be pleased to arrange demos, according to Vincart.

Guess who’s been talking turkey in Iran?
Have you noticed something about the Iranian label market? No? Well, that’s maybe because so far there isn’t much to notice. Which is strange, because it’s not every day that a new market of 80 million people suddenly opens up to international trade. The hotels of Tehran are reportedly overflowing with Westerners selling everything from Airbuses to Gucci handbags, but the problem is finance. The US still denies firms that operate in Iran access to its financial system and bans the commercial use of American products there.

This uncertainty may change (but probably not before the US election). However, it has not stopped one leading label press maker from going ahead. Last Christmas, when most of the world was eating and drinking more than was good for it, Iran Rotative Company (which has for many decades represented Heidelberg) was presiding over 7,000 square feet of booth at the Tehran Printing & Packaging Exhibition, and demonstrating a Gallus ECS 340, no less. Iran Rotative’s chairman Mr. Esfarjani went on record as saying the  “…live demonstration of new Gallus ECS 340 for the first time in Iran will reduce the importation of labels, especially from Turkey which majorly (sic) damages the domestic productions.”

Well, at least now we know where Iran’s labels have been coming from.

Creative Croatians confirm: size is not everything
Everyone agrees that for 99% of wine drinkers, it’s the label that sells the product. Every style and shape of label has been tried and re-tried. But Croatian design agency Bruketa & Zinic has found a new idea: the world’s smallest wine label. Created for wines from the island of Brac, this Lilliputian label “looks more like a price tag,” but is creating a sensation in the (very exclusive) world of Croatian wines. Apparently, according to the agency, the people of Brac are more tight-fisted than the Scots, with whom they share a poor and unyielding soil. But unlike the Scots, the people of Brac make a very palatable wine, which deserves to be better known. As the design agency says: “Great wines do not need great big labels.” And small labels come cheaper.