Imagine you are a label and package printer, and you have just invested in a new label press. Suddenly you wake up one morning and find your country is being invaded. That is what happened to Viktor Artyushenko, CEO of New Media in Odessa.

“We were closed for just nine days when the war began; some bombs landed maybe 500 yards from our plant, so we closed everything and asked our people to stay at home. I sent my family over the border to Transdnistria, but we soon asked our employees to get back to work even though our sales dropped by 90%. We cut costs to the bone, renegotiated our rent and got government help for paying salaries.”

What New Media could not do was to pay the balance owed to Konica Minolta for recently acquired presses that included an AccurioLabel with an MGT finishing line. Konica Minolta was understanding and asked just to be paid for the service contract, toner and spare parts. Artyushenko says business is slowly picking up, despite the recent intensive bombing in and around Odessa.

New Media, like other packaging companies in Ukraine, has to contend with a battery of problems hard for outsiders to imagine. Delivery of, and payment for, raw materials is lengthy and complex, customs clearance is long and often unpredictable. Even within Ukraine, delivery services are few and unreliable. And the bombs keep falling. “Don’t talk to me about same day deliveries,” says Artyushenko.

Dark clouds just around the corner

Your correspondent has just returned from a visit to England, where all is not well. Inflation is touching 8%, with mortgage rates not far behind. More people are realizing that pulling out of the European Union has not brought about the sunny uplands that so many politicians promised. Fortunately for the government, when the English are profoundly unhappy, they wave banners and write letters to The Times newspaper (unlike the French, who burn trashcans and cars).

Fortunately, all this English gloom has not stopped some label converters from investing: Daymark Labels, a family-run business, has invested in an eight-station Mark Andy Evolution Series E5 flexo press and a Digital Pro 3 toner-based press. The E5 was the first to be installed in the UK and is fitted with GEW’s LeoLED/UV curing technology. Daymark is anxious to grow its web-to-print business, hence the need to invest in digital, and the Pro 3, a flexo/digital hybrid, is proving its worth, particularly for its ability to print on a wide range of stocks, without any need for primer, according to CEO Jon Bird.

Sweden is one of only five European countries whose GDP actually fell in Q2/2023. But here, too, Mark Andy has been active, installing an E5 flexo press at Interket’s Helsingborg plant. Interket is a medium-sized label group with annual sales of €40 million ($44 million) and plants in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

This latest Mark Andy press also came with an LED/UV system supplied by GEW, which though more expensive to install, offers lower energy costs than the traditional arc lamp UV systems. CEO Stefan Gustafsson comments, “It’s our first Mark Andy here, and we chose it after hearing good reports on its sister machine at Interket Netherlands.”

Turkey is no longer referred to as the “Sick man of Europe,” but its woes are rather more serious than those of England or Sweden. Annual consumer price inflation is officially given as a mind-blowing 50%, and the country’s budget balance at 4.8% of GDP is only a tad lower than that of the United States.

All that has not deterred at least one major US label converter from investing there. Originally founded in 1902 in Izmir, Western Turkey, the Korsini Packaging Group makes IML labels and has been recently acquired by MCC. Why did MCC want to invest in a modest (200 employees) IML producer in Turkey? We can guess that they see potential both in the domestic Turkish market, and also in the country’s cultural and geographic closeness to major Middle East countries.

Brave New World

Here in France, politicians of all stripes compete to show how ecologically pure they are. Food manufacturers and supermarkets are quick to follow suit. This has produced some very silly, and also some quite sensible, packaging innovations. Bring-your-own-jar displays are now commonplace for cereals and dried fruits. People use different colored trashcans for recycling. Now the fashion might be moving back to reusable bottles.

Under the guidance of France’s Ministry for Ecological Transition (yes, really!), selected supermarkets will introduce a deposit scheme for all glass packaging, which will be returned for washing and reconditioning. The plan is to create standardized glass packaging to facilitate reuse across different products and brands – something unlikely to be achieved except in the very long term and, as Keynes remarked, in the long term we are all dead.

Will it wash off?

In the very short term, there is an increasing European demand for wash-off labels, in particular for recyclable PET bottles. The European-based label association FINAT has published a detailed study highlighting the technical solutions available to ensure that the label separates cleanly before the PET bottle is shredded into recyclable flakes. But the problem is not just technical, and FINAT is calling for closer cooperation and “a full value chain partnership between brand owners, converters and manufacturers of self-adhesive labels to ensure that the optimal label is used for a specific purpose, taking the recycling into account.”

Just what the doctor didn’t order

When the European Commission in Brussels announced plans to revamp existing legislation on pharmaceutical packaging and labeling, it certainly expected stirring up a hornet’s nest – and it was not disappointed. The medical profession and the pharmaceutical producers have weighed in, followed by the packaging and labeling sectors under the aegis of FINAT.

The Commission’s intention is “To make legislation more agile, flexible, and adapted to the needs of citizens and businesses across the EU.” It reflects on possible use of QR codes to replace those leaflets that nobody reads, and on changing labeling information requirements. The Commission does not propose to reduce the number of languages (currently 25) required on pharma labels/packaging as this would have stirred up an even bigger hornet’s nest. The FINAT discussion group will be holding regular virtual meetings to make sure, if possible, that any new European legislation does not contain unworkable labeling or packaging requirements.

To further complicate rational discussion, individual European governments frequently have exaggerated ideas about how to interpret and apply European directives. Take Germany, for instance, where the Federal Environment Ministry wants to tighten up laws on making all packaging reusable. What nonsense, cries the German packaging industry with one voice.

The loudest voice is that of Dr. Sieglinde Stähle, spokesperson of the Food Association: “We are currently in negotiations at the European level for a general European regulation on the revision of the EU Packaging Directive (PPWD), which also addresses the issues of the German amendment now presented by the Federal Environment Ministry. The legislative process for the Packaging Directive (PPWR), which is to apply equally in all European states from 2025, has not yet been completed. A current German go-it-alone approach will place additional burdens on companies throughout the supply chain and further restrict competitiveness. From our point of view, this amendment is symbolic politics. It results in neither environmental nor economic policy benefits.”