What was ‘hot’ at Labelexpo?

Comments Lisa Milburn, recently-appointed MD of the Labelexpo Global Series: ‘With the Eurozone now out of recession, confidence and optimism are beginning to return to the global industry; and converters are again starting to invest in their businesses. The number of sales confirmed at the show endorses Labelexpo Europe as the best-selling platform in the label and package printing industry with printers prepared to spend high on capital equipment.’

Among obvious buzz-words were sustainability, linerless, digital, laser die-cutting, LED-curing and low-migration inks. These topics were ‘hot’ on the lips of substrate suppliers, ink suppliers and machinery manufacturers.

There were also some stunning features such as HP’s Print Your Future area, where HP and a score of partners showcased end-to-end options for label, flexible packaging and carton printing. Also popular were the Inkjet Trail and the Package Printing Workshops.

Also evident was the way Labelexpo has developed into a packaging show, especially flexible packaging, in contrast to its earlier narrow-web label printing persona. This underlines the label market’s ongoing diversification into packaging printing where printers see opportunities to exploit markets beyond labels.

This point was further underscored by the large and enthusiastic audiences that turned out for the Package Printing Workshop sessions, where visitors (including yours truly!) were entranced by Nuova Gidue’s Digital Flexo concept for flexible packaging and Xeikon’s process for printing, converting and sheeting digitally-printed folding cartons.

Labelexpo Europe 2013 featured the launch of more than 150 new products, including presses, ancillaries and consumables, just a few of which are covered in this brief ‘stop press’ article.