Few people, even in France, know that the second biggest “instant game” lottery in the world is French. The Française des Jeux (FDJ) is a government-controlled quasi-monopoly which also runs betting and a host of other gaming-related activities. It is huge, with 2013 sales just shy of $14 billion, issuing countless billions of scratch cards and tickets. The surprising thing is that despite the fact that France has several world-leading security printers, and despite the unsporting tendency of Frenchmen to buy from other Frenchmen, FDJ has this year signed a three-year contract with New-York based Scientific Games Corp. The actual security printing is being done by US and Canadian print houses, and though the size of the contract has not been disclosed, it must be enough to make any printer drool.

Emballage Paris
Emballage Paris is as close as France gets to an international packaging show. This year’s event, from November 17-20, promises to bring together 1,500 exhibitors, of which more than half are from outside France, and around 100,000 visitors. For label professionals, the two hot spots at the show will be digital press manufacturers (Domino, Epson, HP Indigo, etc.) and label converters. The converters range from Reynders, one of Europe’s market leaders, to Braizat Etiquettes, a small but imaginative producer of short-run labels with just four employees. Also exhibiting at the show in Paris will be the French label association UNFEA, which will use the show to award the prizes in its Label Grand Prix.

African initiative
Somali news should not have its place in a column about Europe. However, since L&NW has not yet appointed a Horn of Africa correspondent, here is a piece of good news you may not have heard, from the desk of Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim, the Somali Minister of Posts and Telecommunication. His is probably the second-worst ministerial job in the world (the worst being the Iraqi Minister for Tourism). Despite the poverty of his war-ravaged country, Ibrahim has plans to revolutionize the postal and telecommunications services, at least in those areas under government control. Citizens will soon be able to buy postage stamps, send parcels and swipe QR codes. All this could take a while, but give the Minister top marks for initiative – and for optimism.

From Kyoto to Saxony
You noticed how few Japanese equipment manufacturers there used to be in the label business? The country that until recently boasted the world’s second biggest economy played about as big a role in labels as the second halberd-bearer does in Romeo and Juliet. Until recently, that is. Now, Mimaki, Miyakoshi, Konica Minolta and others have rode into the narrow web field on the back of the digital revolution. And now Dainippon Screen, based in Kyoto, has sold its first digital inkjet label press in Europe. Screen has been in the digital inkjet business for nearly ten years, but selling mainly to direct mail printing houses. Now LabelPrint24, one of Germany’s biggest online label converters, has installed a Screen Truepress Jet L350UV. Labelprint24’s boss Stefan Harder says the new press was chosen because “It can handle short, medium and long runs and can print on a range of substrates including transparent film and metallic foil.” According to Screen, the press has a top speed over 170 sq. ft./minute with a maximum web width of 13.5 inches. This, plus the ability to print white, was decisive for a converter like LabelPrint24. The company’s specialty is web-to-print B2B labels produced at its base in Grossenhain, Saxony, and shipped within 24 hours throughout Western Europe. As previously announced in L&NW, Screen’s European marketing has since 2013 been handled by Dantex, a UK prepress and plate manufacturer with a long and successful track record. With this partnership, Screen could become a serious contender in the rather crowded class of narrow web digital inkjet technology.

Already well established in that same crowded class, the Belgian press manufacturer Xeikon is not standing still. Generally reckoned to be number two (or number three, depending on who you talk to) in digital narrow web presses, Xeikon is notching up the sales successes particularly in the three Benelux countries. Latest news comes from Telrol, a Netherlands label converter which has just installed its third Xeikon press. This is the continuation of Telrol’s move out of flexo and into digital for all its short and medium run business, according to CEO Hoessein Hadaoui. Xeikon technology wins out, he says, because its toner meets FDA and European food packaging standards (a major part of Telrol’s turnover comes from labels and packaging for the food sector).

Xeikon’s marketing strategy, which is already being copied by other equipment makers, is to stage more and more “Xeikon Café” events. These gatherings bring together users and potential users who are invited to visit a Xeikon customer for a day of demonstrations, plant visit and networking, the whole thing in a convivial ambiance which usually involves a good lunch (as important for Belgians as it is for the French). Compared with exhibiting at a show, this café formula is low-cost (the machinery is already right there on site) and can be targeted directly at potential buyers. It is significant, for example, that during the second half of 2014, Emballage Paris is the only show in Europe at which Xeikon will be exhibiting. In the same period, it held or will hold five European “café” events.

Security: double, treble, quadruple…
The German firm of Leica traces its origins back to 1865 when Dr. Ernst Leitz and Carl Kellner started making lenses for microscopes. The first cameras were developed before the First World War, and today the firm is one of the world’s leading makers of digital cameras, while continuing to provide spare parts for half-a-century’s worth of classic Leica cameras which still enjoy a worldwide fan club. Genuine Leica parts do not come cheap, and anti-counterfeit protection is one of Leica’s major concerns. Enter Schreiner Prosecure, which has been making security seals for almost as long as Leica has been making cameras. Schreiner’s security labels and seals are a key part of Leica’s counter-piracy program. They comprise visible protection with color-shifting inks that turn from pink to green depending on the viewing angle, holographic strips and QR codes that can be checked using a smartphone. Along with all this, genuine Leica parts come with Schreiner’s latest tamper-evident closure. There is no such thing as 100% security in a label (or in anything else, come to that), but the latest developments from Schreiner come close to it.

It’s an ill wind
When the Dutch press manufacturer Drent Goebel went under in 2009, Müller Martini acquired intellectual rights and design drawings for the Drent variable size web offset press (known as VSOP). Two Drent employees, Peter Kloppers and Remko Koolbergen, finding themselves jobless, set up a company to service orphaned Drent presses in Europe. Your correspondent read about it at the time and filed it mentally under “worthwhile initiatives.” Five years later their company, DG Services, now employs 60 and will have estimated 2014 sales of $10 million. It has bought and refurbished the former Drent factory in Holland, and this vast 150,000 square foot site now acts as world headquarters for a fast growing business that provides spares and service to 450 active customers using Drent Vision and Gazelle presses, as well as the original VSOP presses, which are now manufactured by Müller Martini. But DG Services doesn’t stop there. In September of this year it gave a “sneak preview” of a brand new web offset press, the “Thallo.” Kloppers reminded his audience of the advantages of offset for both label and package printing: “Offset has … cheaper plates, a total lack of solvents, which along with UV or EB curing makes it food-safe, the capability of printing on a diverse range of substrates with the highest quality and the ability to be ‘fast-on-press’.” 

The Thallo, named after a Greek goddess of nature, will be a mid-web press in widths from 215 to 440 inches, and according to Kloppers, will be capable of printing at 1200 feet per minute on substrates from 12 to 200-microns, and will of course have the stepless repeat which made the reputation of the original Drent-Goebel presses. It will also feature a flexo unit developed in cooperation with
Italy’s Uteco Converting.

DG Services will start beta testing the Thallo at two Benelux locations, but anyone wanting to buy one, says Kloppers, will probably have to wait until after Drupa 2016.

And now – bird friendly coffee
If you were looking for something new in coffee packaging, you would probably not start looking in Southwest England. But that is where the company Bird & Wild imports and packs coffees that have been grown in a way that “protects important migratory bird habitats in equatorial coffee growing regions.”
With a Mission Statement like that, Bird & Wild wanted something environmentally special for the packaging, and UK’s Innovia helped to provide it using a triplex laminate composed of reverse printed clear compostable film on the outside, a high-barrier metalized film on the inside and a starch-based biopolymer to hold the laminate together. This new construction, developed in cooperation with New Zealand-based Convex Plastics, is said to provide an eco-friendly packaging solution for a wide range of other foodstuffs. Today, Bird & Wild is selling its coffees only to specialty health stores but who knows, you may find it in your local Starbucks tomorrow.