During the recent Xeikon Café North America Roadshow in Itasca, IL, USA, L&NW had the opportunity to sit down with CEO Benoit Chatelard, who discussed a wide range of topics that will impact the future of label and package printing for years to come. While digital printing will continue to make inroads in the industry, Chatelard envisions a mutualistic relationship between digital and flexo, where both technologies can help fulfill the growing demand for labels.

“I was born in digital, and I’ve worked in many types of industries, from IT to printing,” he explained. “Everything that can be digitalized will be, and it will never stop. If you can print digitally, you print on-demand, with less stock, and you print faster to accommodate lead times with more personalization. There’s no limit to the technology. If you take the label industry, pure label, I think 20% of the volume is run digitally but those labels represent 40% of the value.

“With flexo, we see a co-existence,” he adds. “I think there will always be co-existence, for another 50 years at least, but the digital volume has much more value because you’re selling greater lead times and personalization. There is greater profit for the converter, even if digital only accounts for 20% of your volume, it can represent half of your profits. From that point of view, the potential is very strong.”

According to Chatelard, the strong rate of innovation will continue to lead to increased digital printing adoption. Advancements, not just in press technology but substrate, toner, ink, will continue to promote digital printing as an efficient and profitable printing method. All of these enhancements have been designed to accommodate greater printing speeds, as well.

Digital printing has also been a boon for converters when dealing with the many challenges of the past two years. From the pandemic to the supply chain constraints, there is an advantage to printing labels digitally.

“I think we see during crisis and when you are challenged that digital printing is very good because you run with less stock,” says Chatelard. “There is a lot of waste when you print conventionally, especially in high quantities. You always order much more and print much more, and in some cases you don’t even use it.”

In that sense, digital printing can emerge as a big contributor for sustainability. With more brands conscientious of hitting specific carbon emission goals, the reduced waste associated with printing on-demand can assist all members of the supply chain.

“If you think from a sustainability point of view, digital is a huge contributor to those endeavors,” remarks Chatelard. “Truly, and it’s the same with computers. With Zoom you use less gas and spend less time in the air. Of course, you need a computer and that is not zero carbon impact, but I’ve seen my travel bill drop dramatically. And it will stay lower forever. At the beginning of the pandemic, my travel dropped by 80%, and while it’s increased it will never get back to normal. You save money, and ultimately sustainability saves money.

“I think we’re also going to move to a world where when you’re good with sustainability, you’re economically better. It’s a paradox, where before there was a world where every time you wanted to be sustainable, it cost you a fortune to do so. You had to pay the bill for the other. Now, you can print digitally, travel less, run fewer square meters and use less stock, and you save an enormous amount of paper, which is good for the planet. One printer we talked to saw paper increase in price by eight times in one year. Economically, it’s a better deal if you’re printing less. I see this change that now it’s very economically viable for both the vendor and end user to have a very sustainable process.”

Digital printing will also emerge as a key driver in workforce development. As more and more employees entering the workforce were raised on digital technologies, the demand for these processes will increase.

“One of our colleagues in Japan dealt with this issue,” explains Chatelard. “It’s hard to find press operators, and he said his applicant wouldn’t work on conventional. If it wasn’t digital, he wasn’t interested. There’s a very old age pyramid for conventional operators of 50-60 years, and they’re all retiring. With the young generation, you won’t find them. I see there being a high demand for digital print because it’s the only way to run the shop.”

All of these trends are positive signs for the label and package printing industry, notes Chatelard. “It’s a very dynamic and still resilient and growing industry,” he states. “You can’t digitalize a bottle of water, since I’m not going to drink from my phone. The newspaper I don’t need to print, as that I can read from my phone. But I don’t drink from my iPhone. There will be a label on a package forever, maybe not on plastic, but that’s positive for our industry.”