TEL AVIV, ISRAEL -- HP today announced that ASG (AGI-Shorewood Group) has signed on as an HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press launch customer and will also install an HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press this year. The new presses will bolster ASG’s existing digital packaging services from design to production, helping the company meet customer demand for dynamic and innovative paperboard packaging. 

As a leading paperboard and rigid packaging company, ASG delivers packaging solutions for the world’s premier consumer brands.  It also serves the health and beauty, pharmaceutical, home entertainment, consumer electronics, confectionery and specialty foods, spirits, and sporting goods markets.

“HP Indigo, with its high print quality, variable data capability and speed, gives us a digital platform that will make us more competitive by expanding our service offerings with high value digital package production,” said Mark Caines, CEO Americas, ASG. “Once the new HP Indigo Digital Presses are in place, our customers will experience immediate benefits with product packaging design and production.  Our customers are excited about the possibilities with creating innovative, complex and specialized packaging for their products.”

Both the HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press and HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press will be installed at ASG’s facility in Toronto, Canada. With the new digital presses, ASG will offer its customers advanced proofing, as well as creative and product development services that include package design, development, prototyping and market sampling.

Capturing mainstream folding carton and packaging applications

As a launch customer, ASG will install one of the first HP Indigo 30000 Digital Presses in the world. In preparation, HP and ASG have already begun validating the press’s output through ASG’s converting processes and supply chain.

Compatible with existing offset printing presses used for mainstream folding carton applications, the HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press will allow ASG to offer customers new value-added packaging options and introduce a solution for economical printing of short- to medium-run jobs.

The sheet-fed HP Indigo 30000 Digital Press has the ability to print on any paperboard (coated, uncoated and metalized) and synthetic boards up to 29 inches by 21 inches in size and 24 points (600 microns) in thickness.

ASG will pair its HP Indigo 30000 with an inline coater by TRESU Group, the leading global manufacturer of carton coating systems and flexo printing lines, for application of a protective aqueous or UV coating required for folding cartons. TRESU Group developed the inline coater, the TRESU iCoat 30000, specifically to meet the needs and fit the operation of the HP Indigo 30000, giving ASG a competitive edge in the quickly growing packaging market.

Driven by a powerful front-end from ESKO, the HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press has extensive color matching capabilities, as well as the ability to create a wide gamut of PANTONE and brand colors.  It also can print on a range of standard paperboards, colored boards and synthetic sheets. The HP Indigo 5500 Digital Press will enable ASG to do short packaging runs that can then be easily matched on an offset press for long production runs. 

End-to-end packaging solutions

With the integration of the HP Indigo 5500 and 30000, ASG will bolster its end-to-end digital packaging capabilities to include product design, testing and just-in-time manufacturing.

In addition to supply chain improvements derived from just-in-time manufacturing, ASG’s customers will enjoy new brand marketing capabilities such as targeted and topical package graphics, localized and versioned product lines, as well as personalized packaging.

“The packaging market, including mainstream folding carton production, is ripe for transformation with digital printing,” said Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general manager, Indigo Division, HP. “The larger format and higher throughput of the HP Indigo 30000 can help packaging converters like ASG offer their customers the benefits of digital printing and redefine what is possible for the brands they serve.  We are thrilled to be working with ASG, such a hallmark name in the packaging market, to introduce the latest HP Indigo technology.”

More than 22 billion consumer goods packages are printed annually ⁽¹⁾ and 80,000 labels and packages areprinted every second ⁽²⁾ on HP Indigo presses. 

AGI-Shorewood U.S. and AGI-Shorewood International collectively employ 3,000 people, operating 19 lithographic, flexographic, digital, and specialty gravure print and injection-molded plastics manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America with eight creative services centers in the U.S., U.K., France, China, and Australia. For more details about ASG products and services, visit www.asg-worldwide.com.

Additional information about HP Indigo digital printing solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/HPIndigoPresses, on the HP Graphic Arts YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts, or through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter Feed, www.twitter.com/hpgraphicarts.