John Penhallow09.07.16
Every summer, the French label magazine Etiq & Pack publishes a detailed analysis of the health, or otherwise, of the country’s leading 100 label converters. This year’s statistics reveal much “business as usual” but also one or two surprises. France’s leading PS label converter is Autajon, a private company ruled, it is said, with a rod of iron by its founder and CEO Gérard Autajon. This year, for the first time in a decade, the group’s sales have declined. Of the group’s nine sites in France, eight have seen a fall-off of sales, only partly compensated by increasing business at the ninth. Is the old man losing his touch, as some insiders have suggested (his health has not been good lately), or is the official reason – that Autajon has dropped marginal business to concentrate on its most profitable accounts – the right one? If the group does come on the acquisition market some time over the next few years, it would be a tasty morsel for any (probably foreign) buyer looking to gain a foot-and-arm-hold in the French label and packaging markets in one fell swoop. In the meantime, this group, along with many others in France, does not publish its annual accounts. This is endemic with many small and medium businesses in France: the law requires limited companies to publish their full annual accounts via their local Chamber of Commerce. Many however “forget” to do so, and the fines, rarely imposed, are derisory. This is not the place to comment in detail on French attitudes to fiscal and accounting rectitude. Sufficient to say that, although things are changing, many people here still subscribe to the Eleventh Commandment “Thou shalt not get found out.” Fortunately, most French label converters are an honest lot in this respect, and this year’s report (which mostly covers 2015 results), shows just 12% reporting a loss, and 35% with an EBITDA of more than 5%. Overall, the “Top 100” increased sales by a modest 3% over 2014, and the five top performers all showed net profits in the 10 to 15% range. There were probably some other high performers lurking in the silent minority but reluctant to reveal too much about their success (see Eleventh Commandment, above).
Thin is beautiful
As people around the world get rounder, packaging and label films get thinner. Nowhere is this more true than in Germany, where the search is on for even thinner, biodegradable films. A German bioplastics specialist with the unusual name of FKuR has developed a new technology for the production of compounds, which can be processed into particularly thin flexible packaging films. According to the manufacturer, films made from these materials are suitable for food contact and compostable according to EN 13432. Depending upon the type, the proportion of renewable raw materials is more than 50%. The processing of its “Bio-Flex” range is said to correspond largely to standard PE processing. In practice, FKuR states as proven that film thicknesses even down to 8 microns are possible – although not yet produced commercially. With a high proportion (more than 50%) of renewable raw materials, this compound fulfills the requirements of the German Bio-waste Ordinance. Thinning down is not just a German phenomenon. Austria’s Constantia Flexibles has just started supplying thinner shrink sleeve labels to a Netherlands beverage manufacturer, and Clondalkin Flexible Packaging says its latest research enabled it to decrease its OPS sleeves to 40 microns and PET sleeves to 30 microns, with no loss of stability.
MEG recycles PET
Mitteldeutsche Erfrischungsgetränke GmbH & Co. KG (MEG to its friends) is Germany’s second biggest producer of non-alcoholic beverages, with sales of over 25 million hectoliters per year. In Germany, non-returnable bottles must carry a deposit, refunded to customers when they return the empties. Since 2010, MEG has been taking back PET empties and reprocessing them into granulate at its own recycling plant. So, as to be able to increase this cradle-to-cradle reprocessing still further, MEG is building another recycling plant near Aachen, Germany.
As part of the Aachen project, filling and labeling specialist Krones will install a module that grinds bottles into flakes and a washing module. The intensive and technologically sophisticated washing process is one of the key elements for assuring top-class PET flake quality. As part of the process, MEG worked closely with Krones to ensure that all labels on its bottles are either easily removable by flotation or are recyclable directly along with the bottles.
More label news at Fachpack
With all the noise generated around Labelexpo Americas, other exhibitions are finding it hard to be heard. This is a pity as several upcoming European shows will be worth the visit. Fachpack in Nuremberg (September 27-29) will have 1,600 exhibitors, and some 45,000 visitors are expected. Among exhibitors at this show will be S&K Label, probably the Czech Republic’s biggest PS label converter. Your correspondent visited the company’s plant a few years ago and was impressed by the quality and performance of its flexo presses. S&K now offers digital as well as flexo, and recently installed an HP Indigo WS6600.
Despite almost clashing with Labelexpo Americas, Fachpack will have a hall dedicated to “Labels and More” with a dozen label converters exhibiting. These will include several Central European heavyweight champions like Marzek, with its 650 employees and sales in excess of $70 million. This family-owned Austrian converter has three plants: the main one in Austria (doing well), another in Hungary (doing OK) and the third in Eastern Ukraine (don’t ask). Marzek converts labels for a wide range of end user markets and, like many others, has moved smoothly into flexible packaging. Narrower in its product range, Killian Druck is showing its innovations in multilayer and booklet labels, with a “Labelbook Next Generation” available at the show. With the exception of Marzek, most of the label-related exhibitors at Fachpack operate mainly in the German-speaking parts of Europe. Faubel & Co. is an exception: this specialist in PS labels ships half a billion of them every year, 60% being exported. It is among the oldest label converters in Europe: when this family-owned business was founded, the United States was just 70 years old and the Civil War hadn’t yet happened! Faubel makes only high value-added labels and specializes in multi-page labels for the pharmaceutical sector. It has the distinction of being one of the few European label converters to have sales offices in both the US and China.
An alarming prospect
Readers of L&NW who drink Bombay Sapphire gin can probably skip the next paragraph. Researched and designed by Germany’s Karl Knauer KG, this bottle comes with a luminescent label with integrated printed electronics. As soon as the customer picks up the packaging at the point of sale, an innovative and intuitive mechanism activates the light on the front side of the packaging, and the potential buyer gets a five-stage light sequence. Knauer, who will also be exhibiting at Fachpack 2016, promises more surprises, with labels that not only light up but also talk to any customer rash enough to pick up the product. It is only a matter of time before some bright spark links these smart, all singing labels to the store’s fidelity card. Then the label’s message will not only be verbal but individually targeted. The label will even sense the poor guy coming. Imagine the scene at a crowded store: “Hi Mr. Jones, it’s two weeks since you last filled up with gin, you must be running low” – especially if the customer in question is president of the local temperance club. The mind boggles.
Never mind the price, feel the quality
Every year in September, exhibitors and visitors congregate in Monaco for the annual Luxe Pack show. Nothing so plebeian as a flashing label here in Europe’s second smallest country, where the rich go to get richer and the poor don’t go at all. In the elegant calm of the Grimaldi Forum, Luxe Pack’s “comfortable and sophisticated environment,” it seems almost indecent to mention anything so sordid as price. With 330 exhibitors this year, the show has again grown, proving - as if proof were needed - that luxury goods demand luxury packaging. Many exhibitors like France’s DB Technique will be promoting short run digitally printed labels. Despite a slight fall-off in exports to China, luxury goods seem to be largely recession-proof. US-based companies will mostly wait until Luxe Pack New York in May of next year. The US show may not have quite the cachet of Monte Carlo, but at least in New York there is less temptation to stroll down to the casino and try to break the bank.
Thin is beautiful
As people around the world get rounder, packaging and label films get thinner. Nowhere is this more true than in Germany, where the search is on for even thinner, biodegradable films. A German bioplastics specialist with the unusual name of FKuR has developed a new technology for the production of compounds, which can be processed into particularly thin flexible packaging films. According to the manufacturer, films made from these materials are suitable for food contact and compostable according to EN 13432. Depending upon the type, the proportion of renewable raw materials is more than 50%. The processing of its “Bio-Flex” range is said to correspond largely to standard PE processing. In practice, FKuR states as proven that film thicknesses even down to 8 microns are possible – although not yet produced commercially. With a high proportion (more than 50%) of renewable raw materials, this compound fulfills the requirements of the German Bio-waste Ordinance. Thinning down is not just a German phenomenon. Austria’s Constantia Flexibles has just started supplying thinner shrink sleeve labels to a Netherlands beverage manufacturer, and Clondalkin Flexible Packaging says its latest research enabled it to decrease its OPS sleeves to 40 microns and PET sleeves to 30 microns, with no loss of stability.
MEG recycles PET
Mitteldeutsche Erfrischungsgetränke GmbH & Co. KG (MEG to its friends) is Germany’s second biggest producer of non-alcoholic beverages, with sales of over 25 million hectoliters per year. In Germany, non-returnable bottles must carry a deposit, refunded to customers when they return the empties. Since 2010, MEG has been taking back PET empties and reprocessing them into granulate at its own recycling plant. So, as to be able to increase this cradle-to-cradle reprocessing still further, MEG is building another recycling plant near Aachen, Germany.
As part of the Aachen project, filling and labeling specialist Krones will install a module that grinds bottles into flakes and a washing module. The intensive and technologically sophisticated washing process is one of the key elements for assuring top-class PET flake quality. As part of the process, MEG worked closely with Krones to ensure that all labels on its bottles are either easily removable by flotation or are recyclable directly along with the bottles.
More label news at Fachpack
With all the noise generated around Labelexpo Americas, other exhibitions are finding it hard to be heard. This is a pity as several upcoming European shows will be worth the visit. Fachpack in Nuremberg (September 27-29) will have 1,600 exhibitors, and some 45,000 visitors are expected. Among exhibitors at this show will be S&K Label, probably the Czech Republic’s biggest PS label converter. Your correspondent visited the company’s plant a few years ago and was impressed by the quality and performance of its flexo presses. S&K now offers digital as well as flexo, and recently installed an HP Indigo WS6600.
Despite almost clashing with Labelexpo Americas, Fachpack will have a hall dedicated to “Labels and More” with a dozen label converters exhibiting. These will include several Central European heavyweight champions like Marzek, with its 650 employees and sales in excess of $70 million. This family-owned Austrian converter has three plants: the main one in Austria (doing well), another in Hungary (doing OK) and the third in Eastern Ukraine (don’t ask). Marzek converts labels for a wide range of end user markets and, like many others, has moved smoothly into flexible packaging. Narrower in its product range, Killian Druck is showing its innovations in multilayer and booklet labels, with a “Labelbook Next Generation” available at the show. With the exception of Marzek, most of the label-related exhibitors at Fachpack operate mainly in the German-speaking parts of Europe. Faubel & Co. is an exception: this specialist in PS labels ships half a billion of them every year, 60% being exported. It is among the oldest label converters in Europe: when this family-owned business was founded, the United States was just 70 years old and the Civil War hadn’t yet happened! Faubel makes only high value-added labels and specializes in multi-page labels for the pharmaceutical sector. It has the distinction of being one of the few European label converters to have sales offices in both the US and China.
An alarming prospect
Readers of L&NW who drink Bombay Sapphire gin can probably skip the next paragraph. Researched and designed by Germany’s Karl Knauer KG, this bottle comes with a luminescent label with integrated printed electronics. As soon as the customer picks up the packaging at the point of sale, an innovative and intuitive mechanism activates the light on the front side of the packaging, and the potential buyer gets a five-stage light sequence. Knauer, who will also be exhibiting at Fachpack 2016, promises more surprises, with labels that not only light up but also talk to any customer rash enough to pick up the product. It is only a matter of time before some bright spark links these smart, all singing labels to the store’s fidelity card. Then the label’s message will not only be verbal but individually targeted. The label will even sense the poor guy coming. Imagine the scene at a crowded store: “Hi Mr. Jones, it’s two weeks since you last filled up with gin, you must be running low” – especially if the customer in question is president of the local temperance club. The mind boggles.
Never mind the price, feel the quality
Every year in September, exhibitors and visitors congregate in Monaco for the annual Luxe Pack show. Nothing so plebeian as a flashing label here in Europe’s second smallest country, where the rich go to get richer and the poor don’t go at all. In the elegant calm of the Grimaldi Forum, Luxe Pack’s “comfortable and sophisticated environment,” it seems almost indecent to mention anything so sordid as price. With 330 exhibitors this year, the show has again grown, proving - as if proof were needed - that luxury goods demand luxury packaging. Many exhibitors like France’s DB Technique will be promoting short run digitally printed labels. Despite a slight fall-off in exports to China, luxury goods seem to be largely recession-proof. US-based companies will mostly wait until Luxe Pack New York in May of next year. The US show may not have quite the cachet of Monte Carlo, but at least in New York there is less temptation to stroll down to the casino and try to break the bank.