DDP group company JK Inks has inaugurated Novedrate 2, a new facility for the production of reactive inks at its headquarters site in Novedrate, just north of Milan. The new plant is fully dedicated to the production of reactive inks, which will be distributed in an innovative new packaging system. The move will enable JK Inks to expand its position in the digital textile market as a supplier of dye-sublimation, pigment, disperse and now the new Digistar Bellagio reactive inks.

The market for reactive inks has expanded rapidly in recent months as more producers convert from analogue to digital printing. Already a trend before the pandemic, this change in the market dynamic has been further fueled by a change in consumer behavior in favor of online shopping. The share of digital in the global textile printing market is growing, and there is an evolving demand for cost-effective short-run production and custom designs. By creating the new Novedrate 2 production facility, JK Inks is cementing its position as one of the main global production sites entirely focused on digital textile printing ink production.

The new plant has been designed to encompass every element of the supply chain, from the input of raw material supplies, through all the production steps to the storage and distribution logistics for the final product. It also features a state-of-the-art Q-lab which includes an advanced quality process monitoring system for in-line control. Using insight gained from the existing Novedrate 1 facility and from their experience of producing reactive inks in India, the company invested €2 million in creating the new site, managing to complete construction in 2020 despite the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Novedrate 2 is a semi-automatic plant, designed to be flexible enough to fulfill both current and future requirements. It will be used to produce the Bellagio reactive inks, which include color process, spot-color sets and black sets. The inks are distributed in innovative Bag-in-Box packaging that combines flexible PE plastic bags with an outer cardboard casing, reducing the amount of plastic used by 80% compared with regular HDPE tanks. After use the two layers can be easily separated for the safe disposal of the ink while the cardboard is recycled.

According to DDP President Abhi Agrawal, ‘The new Novedrate 2 facility is a step into the future for us. By expanding our portfolio of products, we are able to serve the wider needs of our industrial printing customers, and with this completed proposal, we maintain our position as a premium-level partner for the entire digital textile printing market.’

The JK Group is a Dover Digital Printing company (www.doverdigitalprinting.com).