Nobody could accuse Germany’s VPF of dominating the world market for labelstock. It does, however, rate highly for its innovative products and particularly for ecologically sustainable solutions. In the spring of this year, in partnership with Mondi, VPF launched what it claimed to be the world’s first commercial application of label liners made from recycled papers. Well, not wholly, but 70% from recycled papers, with the 30% of virgin fibers coming from certified FSC or PEFC sources. 

VPF also states that producing its 70 g/m2 liner offers energy savings of up to 60%, with similar reductions in water use. Labels made with this liner are comparable to those using a conventional liner, according to VPF’s technical director, Holger Steinbach. His company is no newcomer to sustainable label materials. It offers face materials made from 100% recycled papers, from sugar cane and from grass.

Britain’s Mercian labels is also waving the ecology flag, with another initiative for recycling used liner. All the brand owners or other end-users have to do is collect the used liner and send it (at their own expense, presumably) to Mercian, who then checks it for any contaminants and sends it to a pulping plant to be recycled. “This may cost you less than your current liner disposal arrangements,” says Mercian’s Hayley Cashmore.

There are just a couple of conditions – no mixing glassine and PET liners, and no stray labels, adhesives or cores. Your correspondent has watched deadline-stressed line workers dispose of their used liner and wonders if Mercian isn’t being just a tad too demanding.

Small country, big potential
Estonia is a country few Europeans (and probably even fewer Americans) could pinpoint on a map. Geographically it sits right up at the unfashionable end of the Baltic Sea, and like its neighbors Latvia and Lithuania had a hard time when it was part of the Soviet Union. Estonians also speak a language that only their other neighbors, the Finns, can understand.

On the positive side, they are a savvy lot, the Estonians, claiming to be the most completely digitized country in the world: geeks and Silicon Valley whizz kids come to Tallin, the Estonian capital, to gawp at the technology and wonder how soon if ever the rest of the world will catch up. The country also does a good line in medieval monuments and has, or rather had until Covid came along, a modest but thriving tourist industry.

All this inevitably brings us to LabelPrint OÜ, a medium-sized converter not far from Tallin, with 60 employees and a wide range of label types printed on flexo, screen and (of course) digital presses. This jewel of Estonia’s label business was recently acquired by Poland’s Prime Label Group. Based in Poznan, Prime Label is already using M&A to establish itself as a regional market leader in Central Europe. “Our goal is for the group to generate sales of at least 100 million euro by 2025,” states Michał Wojdyła, Prime Labels’ MD. The group already has three production sites in Poland and one in Slovenia.

If Estonia figures in the “Top 10” of the Ease of Doing Business rankings, poor old Albania sits down in the bottom 10. To start with, the language ranks with Estonian are totally impenetrable and unlike any other on earth. The southern part of this small country speaks mostly Greek, but woe betide you if you try speaking Greek further north. Your correspondent timidly tried out his schoolboy Greek at a filling station and was told in vehement (but incomprehensible) terms that he had put his linguistic foot in it.

But Albania has for several years benefited from the European Union’s largesse, and many new factories are springing up alongside the decaying ruins of the communist era. One of these new plants is Albdesign, which recently installed a 6-color flexo press from MPS. Most of the labels used in Albania come from the ex-Yugoslavian countries or from Italy, so there is every hope that Albdesign will expand to take a comfortable share of this uncomfortable little market. For what it’s worth, readers might like to speculate on why more Albanian refugees come to France than any other national group.

Before welcoming too many immigrants, consider the rise and fall of Italy’s Grafica Veneta, two of whose directors are currently behind bars for turning a blind eye to the exploitation of illegal Pakistani workers. Working hours and safety regulations were ignored, so it is alleged, and the firm’s computer system seemingly forgot to record the presence of many of its workers.

According to a local newspaper report: “On the basis of the investigative findings, the Padua magistrates’ court issued an order of precautionary detention in prison against nine Pakistanis for injury, robbery, kidnapping, extortion and exploitation of labor, and an order of house arrest for the two managers for exploitation of labor.”

Using cheap illegal labor is unfortunately not unusual in Italy (and in many other countries), so it seems the Grafica Veneta managers fell foul of the 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not get found out.”

The Other Cambridge
The Cambridge in England attracts a modest cluster of firms in the label sector, and one of the most successful is Xaar, one of the world’s top makers of inkjet printheads. Shaking a fist at Covid and the global downturn, Xaar recently opened a new corporate HQ. The existing buildings will continue to house production, but R&D will move to the new location. The university has a good reputation of fostering new start-ups, particularly in high-tech sectors. Other label-related companies in the area include IIJ and Royston Labels.

All at Sea
The Suez Canal is one of the world’s shortest short cuts, particularly for trade between Western Europe and the Asia Pacific region. Readers of L&NW will remember how a couple of months ago – and for the first time in its 150-year history – the canal was blocked, not by war but by a pilot who somehow got his vessel stuck at 45° across the waterway.

Logistics managers from Rotterdam to Rangoon started tearing their hair out and shipping rates soared. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest Flexible Packaging review, price increases were 130% for PE resins, almost 70% for BOPP film and 18% for aluminum foil. In addition, freight rates, both for sea to and from Europe, and land transportation within Europe, were affected.

Nobody could reasonably blame that poor Canal pilot for the ensuing chaos and price hikes, but it couldn’t have done his career any good.