Readers of L&NW, being well-traveled men and women, will mostly not need to be told where the Republic of North Macedonia is. But just in case one or two are still wondering, it’s in the southern part of what used to be Yugoslavia, bordering on Greece. And Moniko, in the capital Skopje, is one of the country’s leading label converters.

Moniko employs 33 people and has a sales turnover of €6.5m, and its CEO, Vladimir Kjurchiev, has been buying and selling labels since he was at school! In 2012, Moniko was approached by a casino to supply tickets on lightweight cartonboard. The tickets are used to record the funds of each gambler as he or she moves around the casino, without the need to carry cash. 

“It’s a high-volume, low-margin business,” explains Kjurchiev. “So, you have to specialize to make it work. We started small with a local casino, but as our reputation grew we quickly established an international business. Today, our casino tickets are in use all over the world.”

The company’s existing presses were outdated, and the solution came via an Edale FL5 6-color flexo press that would allow Moniko to develop a new range of products that had previously been beyond its capability, and consequently tap into new export markets. The new press came fitted with a Martin Automatic MBS unwind/splice unit to allow continuous operation.

According to Kjurchiev, using the Martin saves around 60m of material per roll change, and by allowing the press to run continuously there is no drop in quality as it slows to a halt and then ramps up again – so, more saleable product per shift. Barring unforeseen events, Kjurchiev plans to grow sales beyond €10m by 2026.

A dominant market share

If 90% sounds to you like the winning vote in some banana republic’s elections, well think how you’d envy a maker of ancillary press equipment that claims this as its European market share, and which counts ABG, Bobst, Gallus, Mark Andy, MPS, Nilpeter, Omet, Prati, SEI and a fistful of others among a long list of OEM customers. 

This manufacturer is Vetaphone, and it’s based in Denmark (come on, you all know where that is). Established in 1951 by Verner Eisby, who invented what has become to be known globally as “corona treatment,” Vetaphone has continued to pioneer surface treatment technology over the intervening 73 years and today is the acknowledged authority on both corona and plasma treatment processes. 

Many label presses come with corona treatment as standard: this is now true for the Italian manufacturer SEI Laser Converting, which uses Vetaphone technology on its Labelmaster range of narrow web converting lines. 

One of Vetaphone’s more challenging installations is now running at Tullis Russell, a UK manufacturer of security labelstocks, which has installed Vetaphone technology on its Kroenert coating line. Here, the corona treatment is designed to handle thin films and high caliper board with duplex coating of aqueous and viscous liquids. 

Amazin’ Amazon

What on earth has Amazon, that latter-day Sears Roebuck, got to do with the European label scene? Well, every delivery carries one or more labels, and Amazon’s research center in Northern Italy is working on a new, all-singing all-dancing labeler described as: “A universal labeling robot – a high-speed automated labeling machine capable of improving the placement and attachment of labels on paper bags and products shipped in their original packaging.”

With this new machine, labels will be automatically placed on packages of varying sizes and at very high speeds, reducing materials, lowering costs and improving speed and efficiency. Amazon is also reported to be testing a new easy-peel label technology in Europe and the United States, which allows customers to remove the shipping label from the shipped carton.

Heidelberg looks at problems facing European print industry

Heidelberg has commissioned a leading German newspaper to research the main concerns of companies in the German print sector. Unsurprisingly, energy and raw material prices top the list. Other concerns voiced are excessive bureaucracy and difficulty in recruiting trained personnel.

Unexpectedly, the survey shows that only around half the companies interviewed said they were “moderately or totally up to speed” on digitalization. This is despite the fact that 74% of the sample felt that digitalization and AI could partly overcome the lack of manpower.

Germany, with just 3% unemployed, can rightly claim to have a tight labor market, but similar recruitment woes can be heard from label converters in places like France, where unemployment is over 7%.

Recycling: Allegro ma non troppo

The backlash against environmental laws continues. When the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) produced a report claiming that paper-based food packaging is “perfectly recyclable,” Paul Fischer, editor of Swiss Print magazine, threw a fit: “Paper-based food packaging too often comes with synthetic barrier materials, and the whole lot finishes up in landfill or incineration.”

This is especially true of paper-based packaging for liquids (wine, milk, etc.). Well-meaning ecologists sometimes jump to inappropriate conclusions; more dialog with the packaging industry is overdue. Particularly as the packaging and label industries are, in many cases, facing up to the ecological downside of their products.

Take UPM Raflatac, for example. In March of this year the company received “RecyClass recognition for PE Films with its multi-purpose UV acrylic adhesive technology” – making UPM Raflatac the first ever pressure sensitive laminate producer to receive technology approval in this category. According to the manufacturer, “These materials are recognized to be recycling compatible with colored and natural PE flexible films.”

The production and use of flexo plates is another sore point for the environment, but Germany’s XSYS reckons it has a partial solution. Its latest product, EcoFillX, is an innovative software feature developed for its ThermoFlexX imagers, which promises to significantly reduce washout solvent usage.

“Sustainability is a central responsibility for any manufacturer today; a responsibility XSYS places at the forefront of innovation by developing more eco-conscious ways to support our customers in their environmental endeavors,” says Dirk De Rauw, senior optical designer, XSYS.

France, as you might expect, has thrown a lot of taxpayer money into packaging recycling. A state-approved “eco-organization” called Adelphe has as its raison d’être to reduce the environmental impact of packaging. The organization is particularly active in the wine and spirits, catering, and health sectors. Adelphe advises companies on how to reduce, reuse and recycle more of their packaging, finances local authorities to improve collection and sorting, and raises public awareness of best practices.

In 2024, more than 15,000 companies are already members of Adelphe, mobilizing some 90 million euros to develop this circular model, and thus preserve the environment and biodiversity. As of January 1, 2022, all paper and single-use household packaging is supposed to carry the Info-tri mark, and Adelphe is helping its members get to grips with this mandatory marking. To simplify the creation of this Info-tri marking and make the process easier, Adelphe has developed “Easy Info-tri.” In just a few clicks, it says, users can create a marking for household packaging and graphic paper that complies with government requirements.

Things are moving!

An opinion survey for the German packaging industry shows the business climate is slightly less pessimistic than it was but still nothing to get excited about. Elsewhere in Europe, things are gently moving. Bert Van den Brink was a co-founder of Netherlands-based press manufacturer MPS Systems and is still a member of its advisory board. He has bought shares in Etirama Europe, a key partner of the Brazilian narrow web press maker. The deal is expected to be officially concluded in the coming weeks and aims to strengthen the Etirama brand in Europe, through new marketing strategies, a new demo center in Stuttgart, Germany, and new distributors for several European countries.

“Etirama is market leader in Latin America, and we will extend these technologies to other world markets, especially the European continent, which is going through a period of strong recovery in this segment,” comments Ronnie Schröter, CEO of Etirama.

His company has just 10 presses running in Europe, so there is plenty of room for improvement, even if Europe’s recovery should be less strong than he hopes.

And rumors are brewing!

Your correspondent recently asked the Mark Andy agent for a European country why there were so few press releases reporting sales of Mark Andy presses. Is business slack? 

Quite the opposite, he said confidently: “Our many customers gain such a competitive lead with every new Mark Andy press that they prefer to keep it quiet.”

He is an honest man, so it must be true. Kingfisher Labels in the United Kingdom is the exception and is pleased to proclaim its Mark Andy digital press at its production facility in South Gloucestershire. This converter was well served by its flexo presses, but demand for short runs meant it had to move to digital.

“We have many micro-breweries locally whose requirements typify the artisan product market and highlight the need for digital capability,” says Karl Jackson, CEO Kingfisher Labels. “It’s not unusual to be asked for 10,000 labels of 12 or 13 different designs – go figure that with a flexo press.” 

Kingfisher opted for a Digital Pro 3, Mark Andy’s latest model that combines a toner-based CMYK engine with the option of flexo print stations before and after, along with diecutting, matrix stripping, and slitting for single-pass production. And all this is keeping the brewers happy.

Another UK converter has also made the jump from flexo to digital. Arc Labels has installed an AccurioLabel 230 digital press, which now reportedly handles 80% of its 4-color jobs. The press is a joint production by press maker Focus Label and Konica Minolta Business Solutions.

Arc Labels CEO Allan Ford says, “The new press comes with Konica Minolta’s own Label Impose software, which optimizes the use of raw materials by automating jobs, such as step-and-repeat, as well as providing support for variable data printing.”

Just to show that digital is not an all-singing, all dancing label solution, take the case of another UK converter, Bristol Labels. Their HP Indigo was working well, but as CEO Ben Stokes put it, “We are close to some huge accounts for which we didn’t have the right press.”

The answer came from UK’s Edale, which installed a 6-color, 350mm wide flexo press. Bristol can now quote competitively for large and small orders.

Non-biting Belgians

Too small to be a Great Power, Belgium needs to be entrepreneurial. And a good example is the Reynders Group. This family-owned label specialist, founded in 1956 and now in its third generation of managers, has worldwide sales of around $150 million: its pharmaceutical label division is also number one in Belgium for profitability, with a return on equity pushing 40%.

Last year saw Reynders’ acquisition of Schäfer Etiketten. The German site is Reynders’ eighth, and the group is believed to be on the lookout for more acquisitions, to complete those already made in Poland, France, Spain, and India.
As the Reynders Group motto says modestly, “We’re professional nerds when it comes to labels and shrink sleeves. But nice nerds. And we don’t bite.”