John Penhallow11.11.21
The United Kingdom is home to many unusual sports – caber tossing and whippet racing are two that spring to mind – but the British passion for darts is something special. No pub is complete without its dart board and accompanying league table. Huge crowds attend championship matches and millions of pounds can be wagered on a final.
All this explains why a company in the London area has invested in a Mark Andy 6-color press to speed up production of its dart flights. The company, Retriever Sports, manufactures around 10 million sets of dart flights each year in its 20,000 square foot factory, and employs 35. It has been using Mark Andy presses for 20 years but now needed to move on to the latest technology.
According to Phil Baldwin, Mark Andy’s local sales manager, “The new Mark Andy Evolution press is a fully servo-driven 13", 6-color flexo line, with full UV curing and an overhead rail system for moveable cold foil application.”
Retriever Sports’ manager Ian Bennett fills in the details: “Most dart flights are six colors, or five plus varnish, and the moveable cold foil system of the new press allows for the greater degree of creativity in decoration that the market now demands. The new press also features pacing rollers that give improved tension control.”
He adds that Retriever Sports is now selling over 200,000 sets of darts per week, against just 130,000 previously, and plans to expand its export sales. The moral of the story is that if you’re a label press manufacturer, there are niche markets to be found in the most unlikely places. No doubt somebody has developed a press for printing cricket bats. But printing whippets might be trickier – and would run into opposition from the Animal Defense League.
Skanem bows out
Not many European companies, and still fewer Scandinavian ones, can trace their origins back to the start of the 19th century. At that time Norway was already busily exporting fish and needed cans in which to pack them. So, in 1906, Albert Barstad and Halfdan Abel Lunde went into the canning business under the catchy name of Stavanger Bliktrykkeri og Maskinverksted. Cans need labels, and by 1960 they were printing them, and also – incidentally – pioneering the easy-opening lid, which did away with can openers and cut fingers.
Finding that the company name was too long to fit on its ads, the owners changed it to Skanem, then in 1986 sold it to Ole Rugland. Ole was, and still is, a bold but balding Norse gentleman who speaks slowly and thinks fast. Realizing there was better money to be made in labels, he sold off the can business and acquired label converters in the UK, then in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Far East. Now, with label plants in eight countries, Rugland has decided to bow out, selling Skanem’s label operations in UK, Europe and Thailand to Multi-Color Corporation. The Skanem Group will continue to invest in India and Africa, where Rugland sees, “Exciting opportunities for further growth and expansion.”
…and Asteria bows in
There is probably no truth in the anecdote that an English newspaper once ran a front-page story headed “Fog in the Channel: Continent cut off.” However, since January, a thick haze of administrative paperwork bedevils trade between Britain and its former partners in the European Union. This has not stopped M&A activity across the murky waters of the Channel, or in this case the North Sea.
The Asteria Group is based in Gullegem, Belgium, and includes 12 label converters in Benelux, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Estonia and Finland – but nothing in the UK. This is in the process of changing with the acquisition, by Asteria, of CS Labels, which calls itself the UK’s leading digitally printed label producer. Its factory near Wolverhampton in Northern England employs 60 and uses mostly Xeikon presses to convert labels, pouches and flexible packaging. CS Labels boss Simon Smith will continue to head up the UK company.
He comments, “CS will continue to operate with the same traditional family values but with added impact, support and resources of the group. Investments in technology, process and people will continue to deliver Asteria Group with undoubted added value.”
Up, up and away for Europe’s label business
Compared to the same quarter of 2020, consumption of pressure sensitive label materials in Europe jumped by 9.3%, according to trade association FINAT. And remember that last year’s second quarter was 8% up on 2019. This is broadly in line with historic statistics, which put label growth 2-3 percentage points above GDP (GDP estimates for 2021 are 5% for the Euro area and 6% for Britain).
There is a significant difference in that the base year 2020 for GDP was an annus horribilis for Europe’s overall economic performance but a very satisfactory year for many parts of the label business. The peak in demand for paper labelstock started in the first quarter 2021, when there were reports of paper shortages in the supply chain following a period of destocking. Demand growth in the first half of 2021 was mainly due to double-digit growth rates in the UK and Ireland, Southern and Eastern European regions, as reported
by FINAT.
Expansion, inflation, suspicion
Rapid growth means shortages, and the packaging and label sectors are bearing the brunt. Deliveries of labelstock to converters, which used to be a matter of days, are now closer to four or five weeks, if you’re lucky. And don’t expect any price rebates, quite the contrary. As from October 1, Germany’s Feldmühle slapped a 10% hike on all its paper products, closely followed (on October 18) by a further $120 per ton “energy surcharge” to cover the rocketing costs of electricity and petroleum products.
Even in France, where 70% of the electricity is provided by nuclear power, prices are going through the roof. This is a mystery for many here in France, but apparently when European demand goes up, all producers rush to “adjust” their prices. And when demand goes down, they’ll reduce them, won’t they? Er, well…
Less widely reported, and closer to home for the label business, is the investigations just launched by the gumshoes of the European Union into suspicions of price fixing by two of Europe’s leading paper manufacturers, UPM and Stora Enso. Both have undertaken to cooperate fully with the investigators and must, of course, be presumed innocent. Keep watching this space.
Well, that’s a relief
More than a year ago, Heidelberg announced that it had found a buyer for its Gallus subsidiary in Swiss-based Benpac. In March 2020, as faithfully reported in this column, Benpac failed to come up with the expected 120 million euros, and the deal fell through. Everyone knew that Gallus was a jewel in Heidelberg’s crown and seemed likely to find a buyer pretty soon.
Now, Rainer Hundsdörfer, president of Heidelberg, has announced that the label press subsidiary is no longer for sale. It will remain with the group, whose “strategic focus” has changed. Hundsdörfer adds that packaging and labels are among Heidelberg’s key areas of development.
Lombardi enters UK market
When your correspondent visited the Lombardi booth at the last Labelexpo in Brussels (ah, it seems such a long time ago), he was told that this Italian equipment manufacturer was not primarily interested in the label business. This might make you wonder what it was doing at the show. Now its strategy has clearly changed, and it recently installed a 5-color “Synchroline” flexo press at Weber Packaging’s Scottish plant.
With 70 employees, this is one of the largest label converters in the US-based Weber Group, and UK managing director Patrick Hughes comments on this “first” for Lombardi in the UK: “The Lombardi press investment provides us with some great new capabilities to provide innovative products and services for our customers to whom we supply over 10 million linear meters of labels every month.”
The Italian label market is buoyant, and it is not surprising to see Bobst presses being welcomed, particularly as Swiss-based Bobst acquired Italy’s Gidue (now called Bobst Firenze) a few years back. A recent press sale went to label converter IBE, who installed a Bobst Master DM5 flexo/UV inkjet combination press. The new line offers priming, printing, lamination, embellishment and converting in a single pass. IBE produces self-adhesive labels, multi-layer labels and shrink sleeves at its plant is in the Lecco region of Italy. This might be seen as one in the eye for Omet, which is also based in Lecco. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.
All this explains why a company in the London area has invested in a Mark Andy 6-color press to speed up production of its dart flights. The company, Retriever Sports, manufactures around 10 million sets of dart flights each year in its 20,000 square foot factory, and employs 35. It has been using Mark Andy presses for 20 years but now needed to move on to the latest technology.
According to Phil Baldwin, Mark Andy’s local sales manager, “The new Mark Andy Evolution press is a fully servo-driven 13", 6-color flexo line, with full UV curing and an overhead rail system for moveable cold foil application.”
Retriever Sports’ manager Ian Bennett fills in the details: “Most dart flights are six colors, or five plus varnish, and the moveable cold foil system of the new press allows for the greater degree of creativity in decoration that the market now demands. The new press also features pacing rollers that give improved tension control.”
He adds that Retriever Sports is now selling over 200,000 sets of darts per week, against just 130,000 previously, and plans to expand its export sales. The moral of the story is that if you’re a label press manufacturer, there are niche markets to be found in the most unlikely places. No doubt somebody has developed a press for printing cricket bats. But printing whippets might be trickier – and would run into opposition from the Animal Defense League.
Skanem bows out
Not many European companies, and still fewer Scandinavian ones, can trace their origins back to the start of the 19th century. At that time Norway was already busily exporting fish and needed cans in which to pack them. So, in 1906, Albert Barstad and Halfdan Abel Lunde went into the canning business under the catchy name of Stavanger Bliktrykkeri og Maskinverksted. Cans need labels, and by 1960 they were printing them, and also – incidentally – pioneering the easy-opening lid, which did away with can openers and cut fingers.
Finding that the company name was too long to fit on its ads, the owners changed it to Skanem, then in 1986 sold it to Ole Rugland. Ole was, and still is, a bold but balding Norse gentleman who speaks slowly and thinks fast. Realizing there was better money to be made in labels, he sold off the can business and acquired label converters in the UK, then in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Far East. Now, with label plants in eight countries, Rugland has decided to bow out, selling Skanem’s label operations in UK, Europe and Thailand to Multi-Color Corporation. The Skanem Group will continue to invest in India and Africa, where Rugland sees, “Exciting opportunities for further growth and expansion.”
…and Asteria bows in
There is probably no truth in the anecdote that an English newspaper once ran a front-page story headed “Fog in the Channel: Continent cut off.” However, since January, a thick haze of administrative paperwork bedevils trade between Britain and its former partners in the European Union. This has not stopped M&A activity across the murky waters of the Channel, or in this case the North Sea.
The Asteria Group is based in Gullegem, Belgium, and includes 12 label converters in Benelux, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Estonia and Finland – but nothing in the UK. This is in the process of changing with the acquisition, by Asteria, of CS Labels, which calls itself the UK’s leading digitally printed label producer. Its factory near Wolverhampton in Northern England employs 60 and uses mostly Xeikon presses to convert labels, pouches and flexible packaging. CS Labels boss Simon Smith will continue to head up the UK company.
He comments, “CS will continue to operate with the same traditional family values but with added impact, support and resources of the group. Investments in technology, process and people will continue to deliver Asteria Group with undoubted added value.”
Up, up and away for Europe’s label business
Compared to the same quarter of 2020, consumption of pressure sensitive label materials in Europe jumped by 9.3%, according to trade association FINAT. And remember that last year’s second quarter was 8% up on 2019. This is broadly in line with historic statistics, which put label growth 2-3 percentage points above GDP (GDP estimates for 2021 are 5% for the Euro area and 6% for Britain).
There is a significant difference in that the base year 2020 for GDP was an annus horribilis for Europe’s overall economic performance but a very satisfactory year for many parts of the label business. The peak in demand for paper labelstock started in the first quarter 2021, when there were reports of paper shortages in the supply chain following a period of destocking. Demand growth in the first half of 2021 was mainly due to double-digit growth rates in the UK and Ireland, Southern and Eastern European regions, as reported
by FINAT.
Expansion, inflation, suspicion
Rapid growth means shortages, and the packaging and label sectors are bearing the brunt. Deliveries of labelstock to converters, which used to be a matter of days, are now closer to four or five weeks, if you’re lucky. And don’t expect any price rebates, quite the contrary. As from October 1, Germany’s Feldmühle slapped a 10% hike on all its paper products, closely followed (on October 18) by a further $120 per ton “energy surcharge” to cover the rocketing costs of electricity and petroleum products.
Even in France, where 70% of the electricity is provided by nuclear power, prices are going through the roof. This is a mystery for many here in France, but apparently when European demand goes up, all producers rush to “adjust” their prices. And when demand goes down, they’ll reduce them, won’t they? Er, well…
Less widely reported, and closer to home for the label business, is the investigations just launched by the gumshoes of the European Union into suspicions of price fixing by two of Europe’s leading paper manufacturers, UPM and Stora Enso. Both have undertaken to cooperate fully with the investigators and must, of course, be presumed innocent. Keep watching this space.
Well, that’s a relief
More than a year ago, Heidelberg announced that it had found a buyer for its Gallus subsidiary in Swiss-based Benpac. In March 2020, as faithfully reported in this column, Benpac failed to come up with the expected 120 million euros, and the deal fell through. Everyone knew that Gallus was a jewel in Heidelberg’s crown and seemed likely to find a buyer pretty soon.
Now, Rainer Hundsdörfer, president of Heidelberg, has announced that the label press subsidiary is no longer for sale. It will remain with the group, whose “strategic focus” has changed. Hundsdörfer adds that packaging and labels are among Heidelberg’s key areas of development.
Lombardi enters UK market
When your correspondent visited the Lombardi booth at the last Labelexpo in Brussels (ah, it seems such a long time ago), he was told that this Italian equipment manufacturer was not primarily interested in the label business. This might make you wonder what it was doing at the show. Now its strategy has clearly changed, and it recently installed a 5-color “Synchroline” flexo press at Weber Packaging’s Scottish plant.
With 70 employees, this is one of the largest label converters in the US-based Weber Group, and UK managing director Patrick Hughes comments on this “first” for Lombardi in the UK: “The Lombardi press investment provides us with some great new capabilities to provide innovative products and services for our customers to whom we supply over 10 million linear meters of labels every month.”
The Italian label market is buoyant, and it is not surprising to see Bobst presses being welcomed, particularly as Swiss-based Bobst acquired Italy’s Gidue (now called Bobst Firenze) a few years back. A recent press sale went to label converter IBE, who installed a Bobst Master DM5 flexo/UV inkjet combination press. The new line offers priming, printing, lamination, embellishment and converting in a single pass. IBE produces self-adhesive labels, multi-layer labels and shrink sleeves at its plant is in the Lecco region of Italy. This might be seen as one in the eye for Omet, which is also based in Lecco. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all.