Over the past decade, digital printing has gained a significant portion of the labels sector. It is starting to break into corrugated packaging pre- and post-print, with flexible packaging and pouches next on the list.
Yet with honourable exceptions, the carton sector’s response to digital has been ‘meh’. ‘Digital is for samples and tests, not real world production,’ is the general response. Brands’ supply chains don’t work for short runs, on-demand or personalisation, is the belief.
However this isn’t always true any more, as brands’ requirements from their packaging are changing to reflect new realities in retail economics, online ordering and shifting consumer habits.
Xeikon has long experience of the sector, having launched its Folding Carton Suite at Ipex 2010. This uses modified 520mm web-fed dry toner label presses with carton-specific ancillaries, printing standard cartonboard without pre-treatment.
Filip Weymans, vice president of marketing at Xeikon, says, ‘Looking today at the folding carton sector, then the market potential that was always identified for digital is less than originally anticipated. That is because the trend in diversification of products, that leads to shorter runs and to a drive for more cost-effective production technology, has not yet got to a level that it drives more volume for digital yet.
‘Where digital really excels in folding carton is where the customer is able to add value to the work being sold. For example just-in-time printing, where the big brand pharmaceutical houses have demanded just-in-time ordering. Or for example where the smaller size of a carton run means pre-press and start-up costs are more of a factor. But for the mainstream type of work that we had anticipated to go to digital, the reality is that it is much less than anticipated. Digital ticks all the boxes, but the volumes in the market have not declined yet to the point where it justifies digital for mainstream work.’
Competitive advantage
One reason, he says, is that offset presses have grown more efficient for shorter runs, reducing crossover points below which digital has a cost advantage.
Heidelberg sells a lot of very automated and efficient litho presses into the carton sector, but also sells the B1 format seven-colour Primefire inkjet press for cartons. Montserrat Peidro, head of Heidelberg’s digital business unit, points out the first digital label presses were announced in 2004, but last year was the first time that digital outsold conventional label presses. ‘So, cartons will take time too,’ she says.
‘The carton sector is much more conservative. The supply chain determines the rest of the process. Filling needs, regulations, etc, play a much bigger part than for other print processes. Therefore digitalisation is going way slower than in commercial printing. Is it going to happen? Totally yes. The question is how long will it take?’
Primefire has been in series production for almost two years, following three beta sites in 2017/18. ‘We have sold them into all territories except Africa,’ says Ms Peidro. ‘The US has seen the largest demand. It’s not scared of anything new and jumped in very quickly. The advantage there is time to market. In Japan and China they like the supply chain efficiencies, especially in pharma.’
Although B1 means the Primefire is big and expensive, she points out this means it’s compatible with converters’ existing finishing lines, unlike B2 digital presses from HP Indigo, Xeikon and Konica Minolta. Landa and MGI with its AlphaJet also offer B1 formats. ‘OK, for B2 presses you can put in a lower cost B2 autoplaten, but what if it breaks? You cannot immediately transfer the job to a B1 finisher as the dies won’t fit.’
The carton market is changing, Ms Peidro notes. ‘Converters are looking to how they can be more profitable and improve turnaround time. More and more customers want to add value. Randomised designs for instance, or lots of variations. It is most important to cut costs, add value, speed up.
‘Another usage is pharma. Companies are extremely interested in Primefire since the 2019 EU guidelines were introduced. This says each box must be uniquely identified and trackable, and where possible hard to copy. We are working with pharma companies on invisible security codes that cannot be copied, using stochastics, etc.’
Landa’s S10S B1 carton presses are now reaching users, getting real-world feedback, and starting to deliver on performance. Yarden Ben-Dor, product line manager at Landa Digital Printing, says, ‘We print at 6500 B1 sheets per hour today. At drupa 2020 we will have two presses printing in high speed mode, which will be five-digit speeds. They will be very close to offset speeds. Added to that we can print on any paper or board.’
Mr Ben-Dor notes, ‘People who buy digital machines are looking for two things. First is flexibility. Both the brands and the converters look for that. The ability to run short runs allows the flexibility to respond to market needs, lowering the cost of inventory over time.
‘For example L’Oreal runs hundreds of thousands of hair colour cartons. If they reduce quantities, even though the cost per SKU will be a little higher, the TCO across the whole supply chain is lower. You can cut costs on sourcing, on waste, on obsolete cartons.
‘Digital also allows the flexibility of a whole bunch of designs, what we call SKU proliferation, with unique Pantones, dedicated to specific brands or images. Digital gives the flexibility, due to short runs.’
Security is important too. ‘We have a few converters with pharma brands,’ he says. ‘The ability to do VDP, for unique codes and other stuff, is only enabled by digital.’
Further, short runs are growing in importance as online packaging ordering takes off. ‘The big companies understand that web-to-pack is the way to go. That’s online shopping and so on. A lot of applications are being developed, for VDP and really ultra short runs.’
Landa’s home territory is Israel, a small country where carton runs average 5,000 SKUs, he says. But, sometimes there are exceptions. ‘One of the jobs we’ve done in Israel was to print 40,000 pizza boxes for Domino’s, each with a unique code. 40,000 was way above the breakeven point, but it was a VDP job and our customer’s press was the only one that could do this. Domino’s originally wanted 30,000 boxes. Because of the campaign’s success they wanted 10,000 more, which were printed on the same day.’
The HP Indigo 30000 B2 liquid toner carton press has been shipping since 2013, so the company has been able to watch its customers’ markets develop. ‘Where cartons are growing is partly because run lengths are getting shorter, but there is also the ability to use a digital press as a top-up device,’ says Andy Pike, HP Indigo marketing manager for the UK and Ireland. ‘Even where a job is not suited to digital because of the run length, you may suddenly reach a peak in demand and need a top-up, for an extra number of cartons which can be produced digitally. The key is that our HP Indigo quality can match the quality of litho. Previously digital wasn’t capable of matching the quality so people wouldn’t accept it.’
There’s a shift in brands’ requirements too, he notes. ‘What’s new is campaign-led or design-led elements, with the ability to have something unique. Campaigns using something like HP Mosaic software for random design variations, or some sort of competition, are among the trends we’re seeing where people are doing more quirky things with packaging, not just having the standard boxes that they always have.’
Personalised cartons do make money too, he says. ‘There’s the gifting market, for chocolate, or beverages or similar, that’s huge. You don’t need to make millions of special boxes to make good margins.’
Short runs can mean new customers for brands. ‘The labels sector has seen an increase from artisan brands such as craft breweries,’ says Mr Pike. ‘We are now seeing this in flexible packaging and the folding carton sectors, where smaller mom-and-pop businesses, or start-ups, are looking for professional packaging that elevates their brand. So they can sit on a shelf in a supermarket next to a ‘professional’ brand with the same quality. For instance you can pay a lot of money for a fancy artisan tea. Run lengths don’t need to be big because of digital, but the pack quality means you can sell them in the big supermarkets.’
This article was published in November/December 2019 edition of Digital Labels & Packaging, which can be read online here
