Swiss printing company Birkhäuser+GBC, a subsidiary of Schelling AG, has successfully carried out field tests of its second Gallus Labelfire hybrid inkjet-flexo press.
Four years ago, Birkhäuser+GBC was one of the first printers to invest in a Gallus Labelfire 340. Now in 2020 and with both presses installed at the printer’s Reinach plant near Basel, Switzerland, the company has been able to print a variety of labels and flexible packaging in 1200dpi since July 2020 with its latest investment. Moreover, the press installed is compliant with low migration requirements. This includes the use of low migration inkjet inks in the digital printing unit (DPU) of the hybrid press. The is followed by UV boosters from GEW to produce applications with low migration compliance even at high speeds. Migration tests were done on the Gallus Labelfire at Heidelberg’s facility in Wiesloch, Germany. The low migration compliance was confirmed by the Swiss laboratory service provider SQTS (Swiss Quality Testing Services).
Marcel Häsler, COO at Birkhäuser+GBC, commented, ‘The new Gallus Labelfire 340 with low migration equipment is the perfect machine for us. This digital printing press is the ideal addition not only to the flexo printing presses in this segment but also to our first Labelfire.
‘Now we can offer the whole range of applications for the food sector, which meet all relevant low migration requirements – from flexible packaging and labels, paper bags and folding cartons to self-adhesive labels with cold foil finishing or lacquer effects.’
Mr Häsler continued, ‘The ‘Labelfire Plus’ – as we call it internally – gives us the necessary flexibility for our customers and once again confirms our goal of technological leadership. For us, the customers are decisive, not the machine technology. With the Gallus Labelfire, we can offer our food customers low-migration-compliant and permanently reproducible applications with excellent print quality and very small font sizes as well as short order sizes.’
Tobias Grolimund, head of production at Birkhäuser+GBC, added, ‘We can now cover more applications and therefore more customer jobs, so I expect that the machine`s full capacity will soon be reached.’
