UPM Raflatac has added a new collection of wine, spirits and beverage label materials – Rêverie 3 – which embraces circularity by using recycled fibres in labels.
The new collection was made in collaboration with five Spanish designers. It offers packaging designers a toolkit of labels all made with materials from FSC certified forests, recycled materials and other controlled sources.
Given the current climate on sustainability, UPM Raflatac wished to showcase the potential of today’s sustainable label materials. Therefore, five of the company’s responsibly sourced label materials were given to five Spanish design agencies, with the brief to create a new collection.
‘The label designs in the Rêverie 3 collection were created for high-end wine, spirits, sparkling cider, craft beer and tomato juice drinks, with excellent execution of the artworks with different printing techniques managed by Gráficas Varias,’ stated Joss Ramel, packaging solutions manager for Spain and Portugal at UPM.
The five label materials and designers chosen were: Biarritz (20% recycled fibres) for Estudio Series Nemo; Drops (100% recycled fibres) for Estudio Maba; Fenix (40% recycled fibres) for Estudio Puidgemont Roca; Hipster (100% recycled fibres) for Estudio Calcco, and Vintage (30% recycled fibres) for Bulldog Studio.
All faces are suitable for letterpress, flexography, offset, screen and hot-foil printing methods, and also UV flexo has been tested. For other printing techniques like inkjet and/or toner testing is recommended.
‘We designers have a responsibility and a duty to use materials of this kind. The industry is progressing. Suppliers have more and more options for using sustainable materials. Having a range of recycled papers with this much personality and quality, that are hyper-specialised, is amazing for us designers,’ said Miguel Angel del Baño from Estudio Maba, commenting on his experience in using UPM Raflatac’s label materials.
‘I was pleasantly surprised by the print quality, especially in the area of relief and stamped finishes, the ease of adherence, fixing and raising. It looked as if it would never be possible to have elegant, high-class recycled paper for premium products. But now, we can say that papers of this quality do exist. The Rêverie 3 series has managed it,’ concluded Sergio Aja Iglesias of Estudio Calcco
‘Responsible sourcing is in our DNA here at UPM Raflatac. Thanks to our sustainable supply chain, we can offer designers FSC-certified labels that have varying percentages of PCR content, suiting any requirement. This collaboration has shown that recycled fibre materials can stand alongside other labels and deliver in terms of both quality and impact,’ remarked Eulalia Alcaraz, business director at UPM Raflatac.
