Boxmeer, Netherlands - German label converter Etikettenhaus, of Hilden near Düsseldorf, earned praise for its flexibility in supplying serialised, short runs of labels to the food industry with SPGPrints’ UV-curable digital inkjet technology at the prestigious French digital label industry awards

With its 330mm (13”)-wide five-colour DSI (Digital System Integration)® inkjet label press, the newly formed converter  won the 'best foreign label' category, at the Digital Label Forum, hosted by Etiq Et Pack magazine. This marks the third consecutive year that SPGPrints has gained recognition at the awards. 

The winning design comprises a set of three four-colour self-adhesive labels, applied to point of sale boxes for a national German packaging assembler and wholesaler, Dosen-Zentrale Züchner (Hilden, Germany). Printed on Herma super-white paper, the labels are applied to the front and sides of corrugated packages containing the retailer's own brands of jams.

Bas Hoijtink, commercial manager graphics and SPGPrints, comments: “For a label converter to go from start-up to industry award-winning status in twelve months is a remarkable achievement. We are proud that our technology has been instrumental in helping Etikettenhaus to achieve international recognition for their flexible branding solutions.”

The DSI press specified by the label converter includes opaque white and CMYK colours, a flexo coater, and a semi-rotary die-cutter. It features as standard intermittent pinning and a water-cooled chill drum to stabilise heat-sensitive substrates. The custom-built press, with its ability to print and convert the labels in a single pass at top speeds of 35m/min (115ft/min) and high-performance software, provides a lean and productive way of delivering short and medium runs with variable data. This enables Etikettenhaus to offer the point of sale branding solutions and batch traceability for multiple stock-keeping units, with a level of flexibility not achievable with conventional printing methods.

Using a common-sized label and template based on customer branding guidelines, Etikettenhaus makes design changes and add serial numbers with ease and at very short notice for each job.

Udo Sobkowiak, owner and co-founder of Etikettenhaus, comments: “Thanks to SPGPrints’ DSI press, we can give customers the optimum mix of strong brand identity, security, flexibility and cost-control. For national retailers, we supply up to a thousand batches, each comprising a thousand identical labels with the their own batch number. Using the software, we are able to schedule several jobs consecutively – sometimes as many as 40 in a day - with no waste or setup times between jobs. In this way we provide an effective safety control for popular brands, enabling any problems to be linked to a specific batch, thereby limiting losses in the unlikely event of a recall.”

Covering the visible external surfaces of the boxes, the four-colour labels reinforce the shelf impact of the glass jar packaging, combining strong, identifiable branding  with images of the appropriate fruit  and wood to evoke a rustic impression. SPGPrints' inks, optimised for the DSI, offer high gloss and opacity and ensure vivid photographic reproduction, ensuring the package makes an impact on the consumer in a supermarket or grocery store. The scratch-resistance of the inks effectively protect the image from degradation through abrasion in during transport and handling.

Etikettenhaus was founded in March 2014, when Mr Sobkowiak together with a distribution partner teamed up to meet the food industry’s growing need for self-adhesive labels. The DSI press to date remains the sole press at the company, which now has a workforce of eight. The owner made the decision to invest in the press after seeing demonstrations at Labelexpo Europe the previous year.

Mr Sobkowiak comments: “The digital inkjet process was an essential part of our business concept, because it was the most reliable and economical means of supplying both short runs and thermal transfer labels. When choosing a press, SPGPrints’ DSI stood out because of its solid, robust build, which ensures stability, precision and high speeds. We felt it would deliver long-term quality. And thanks to the support we have received from SPGPrints in the months since installation, the press is meeting our expectations and providing a platform for growth.”

SPGPrints’ award-winning DSI press offers modularity in print positions, configuration and width. Custom-built as a standalone or complete converting line in widths between 135mm and 530mm, the press features CMYK as standard, and can be easily upgraded with up to six more stations. These can include opaque white with 93 percent optical density, orange and violet to make 90 percent of the colour gamut achievable, and digital primer to maximise substrate compatibility.