Color digital printing is now long-established in packaging, but mainly for printing labels, which fit well on narrow digital webs such as HP Indigo and Xeikon presses and printers from companies like Allen Datagraph, Primera, and Quick Label Systems. Folding cartons and flexible packaging have been part of the story for several years, but primarily as crossover applications for presses that were designed to print labels.

This picture started to change at drupa in 2012, when HP Indigo and several of its competitors introduced B2 sheet fed presses for printing folding cartons and, in HP Indigo’s case, a 30” digital web press for flexible packaging. Two years later, the drupa B2 packaging presses collectively have 10 to 20 installations globally. Most of these devices are still in beta testing, but all of them were designed to print the bigger images and specialized media of folding cartons or flexible packaging. There’s been another, related change in the view since drupa 2012—the advent of other high-end digital print systems that print corrugated directly in full color or, amazingly, cans, bottles, and other shaped packaging such as tubes.

One thing that all of these new color digital packaging solutions have in common is their high purchase prices. Most cost about $1 million, but a few cost as much as $4 million. For the price, each device offers a new level of color digital print productivity, bringing a stronger competition to analog printers. Some of these devices have even come from suppliers outside of our industry, in particular makers of industrial automation for the beverage industry. The Table below cites most of these high-end presses that are designed for packaging applications.