Equipment: A finishing touch

There was a time when, if a finish made a pack look pretty, it had done its job. Nowadays, looking good is seldom enough – finishes need to deliver on other counts, too. With brand owners under pressure to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging, they want their finishes to be green – after all, what’s the point in using a recyclable substrate if the OPP finish means the pack can’t be recycled?

Decorative print finisher Celloglas has addressed this demand with its CelloGreen laminate – a recyclable and biodegradable over-lamination film product, which, it says, is proving a popular alternative to OPP. “We believe the environment will continue to be an important factor and are looking into the development of other environmentally friendly products,” says the company’s sales director, Steve Middleton.

Finishes also have to be cost-effective. To an extent, this has always been the case, but with the recession, it’s a requirement that has really come to the fore in some markets. “For some product categories, fast turnaround, high volume and cost are a high priority,” says Middleton. To this end, for the past 12 months Celloglas has been promoting a service called Cellocover. This adds multiple varnish effects in one pass and runs at 15,000 sheets per hour, enabling companies to work to shorter deadlines and reduce cost per item.

Celloglas already offers finishes such as textured varnish, ‘green’ water-based varnish, matt/gloss combinations, soft touch and re-moist gum. Under its Cellocover service it also offers a gloss lamination matt varnish technique said to produce a cost-effective alternative to matt lamination and gloss spot UV. “It produces a stunning result with a cost saving of up to 50%,” says Middleton.

As Celloglas demonstrates, there is a raft of different finishing techniques available to brand owners and packaging producers. So which are proving most popular?

“Enhanced UV finishes – gloss, matt or a combination of both – are most commonly applied to FMCG packaging,” says Gary Doman, sheetfed sales director with Manroland GB. “It’s a mature technology that is fast, efficient and instantly adds to the durability and aesthetics of printed packaging.”

Decorative foils and holograms are two more finishing techniques that have been used in carton packaging for some time. According to Bobst, in recent years their use has grown as brand owners try to differentiate their products from those of their competitors – and of counterfeiters. This is an observation backed up by Middleton, who says: “Across the packaging sector, foiling has always been a universal and effective way of demonstrating a premium or market-leading product. Foiling designs will continue to develop and we are actively promoting different techniques and effects.”

Similarly, Armand Gougay, EskoArtwork’s vice president of artwork, says: “Holographic foils remain a very popular effect. They constantly go in and out of fashion in some regions and product segments, but overall you see them more and more. Besides foils, holographic patterns are now also cast in the varnish using the so-called ‘cast and cure’ method.”

He adds that as metallic pigments get better and better, there is a trend towards using metallic inks instead of foils. “Some designs that would have been produced with foil in the past are now being produced with metallic inks.”

Finally, at the more extreme end of the scale, for brands that want to get more experimental and go for an ultra-high impact, possible techniques include glow-in-the-dark inks and varnishes, spot UV and glitter varnish combinations and temperature-sensitive inks.

And what of the equipment used to apply these finishes? There is a continued drive to keep as much finishing as possible in-line to the press, thereby eliminating handling time and costs, together with floorspace requirements and capital investment in separate post-press machines. This trend has always been marked among narrow-web and flexo press manufacturers. Gallus’ presses, for example, incorporate finishing functions. “Most finishing is done in-line with the printing for efficiency reasons,” says the firm’s UK managing director, Wim Brunsting.

Barriers to integration
However, for other printing processes, while in-line finishing might be desirable, it isn’t yet possible. “While the preference might be to finish on-line, effective technology for on-line cutting, creasing, gluing and folding – all typical finishing stages for even the most basic packaging – doesn’t currently exist. There are generally at least two and sometimes three finishing steps post-press,” says Manroland’s Gary Doman.

That said, Manroland has made progress in this direction, by developing InlineFoiler Prindor, an in-line foiling system. “In-line cold application foiling is already widely adopted on the continent and it’s beginning to build momentum in the UK as an efficient, cost-effective alternative to the established off-line and labour intensive hot-foil embossing method,” says Doman. The system’s efficiencies are due to the process taking place in a single pass and the immediate over-printing of ink on to the foil.

Manroland’s InlineFoiler Prindor uses an offset printing unit to apply an oil-based adhesive ink to the target areas of the media, using a standard printing plate. The foil is reel-fed into the next printing unit, where it’s pressed on to the media by the blanket and transferred to the areas where the adhesive has been applied. This takes place at normal production speed and the third and following units are used for offset printing.

Similarly, at last year’s Drupa, Komori launched a new sheetfed press with in-line cold foiling, UV coating and embossing. The added-value units on the Komori machine slow it down by about 15-20%, but it still makes the processes much cheaper than off-line equivalents.

Die-cutting is also moving towards integrated production, with a raft of machines newly extended to incorporate functions, such as embossing and foil-blocking, in a single pass. Heidelberg’s Varimatrix 105CSF die-cutter, for example, features foiling and embossing, while Kama’s ProCut 53 can cut, crease, perforate, kiss-cut, cold emboss and produce Braille. Options for hot stamping plastic and hot foiling are also under development.

The new Duopress from Masterwork Graphics is capable of foiling/embossing and die-cut/stripping in one pass, and the company’s Webfoil 920 is a three-headed foiling/embossing machine with in-line die-cutting, converting printed products from a roll as opposed to being sheet fed. “With either machine, we are putting the equivalent of 10,000 sheets on the floor,” says European sales manager Ken Farnsworth. “Basically we are providing the added-value market with a new concept – two processes in one pass and only one operator.”

Corrugated creativity
Smurfit Kappa Corrugated has developed embossing tool technology aimed at increasing the impact of printed packs. The effect is created by an embossing tool which fits on to the flatbed die-cutter’s cutting form, allowing the company to emboss logos, numbers, letters and shapes on to corrugated board. The technology was developed with Ralegh, the manufacturer of printing plates and lasercut flatbed and rotary cutting dies.

It has been revealed a nationwide pizza chain is expected to be the first to use the embossed corrugated products. Dave Powell, regional design manager of Smurfit Kappa South West, says: “With packaging playing an ever-increasing role in consumer product marketing, the utilisation of this technology will enable further stand-out and high impact for our clients.”

Choosing between finishes can be a laborious task. Although not strictly ‘equipment’, EskoArtwork offers a 3D visualisation tool for finishing to help brands make a decision. Branded ‘Visualizer’, this is capable of showing a wide range of materials and finishes, from different papers, boards and films, to metallic inks, hot stamp foils, cold foils and varnishes. In April, the company released an update of Visualizer featuring Kurz holographic foils, which Esko says has generated a lot of interest.

Evaluating the benefits of finishing techniques is no longer purely based on aesthetics, but the environmental impact of the final piece of packaging. Equipment manufacturers are starting to take this into consideration, but in the current climate, it’s clear that finishing techniques need to be – above all – cost-effective. Any technologies that add impact while reducing costs and protecting the environment will be welcomed with open arms by brand owners, converters and printers. Therefore, integrated kit looks set to grow and grow.

BRAILLE EMBOSSING
Braille embossing is on the rise, according to Bobst. This is partly driven by a change in the law, which mandates inclusion of Braille on all pharmaceutical outer packaging by 2010.

However, brands in industries other than pharmaceuticals are also increasingly opting to include braille embossing on their packaging. Bobst has responded to the trend with its AccuBraille unit.

Braille has traditionally been embossed using a die-cutter at the time of cutting and creasing or on a separate line. The AccuBraille moves the Braille embossing process further down the production line to the folder-gluers, with the aim of increasing consistency of Braille height.

Only one embossing tool is needed per job, and it can apply embossing closer than 5mm from a carton edge or crease, unlike a die-cutter. The set-up of tools takes less than five minutes and no additional staffing is required.

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