The United Kingdom has particularly draconian packaging regulations. All UK companies with a turnover of more than $2.7 million must assess how much packaging they have placed onto the UK Market. If the volume exceeds 50 metric tons per year, then the companies must pay a levy to be used to fund recycling of packaging waste. It seems many UK companies do not know about these rules (or turn a deaf ear) and the unlucky ones subsequently get fined. This particularly affects the label industry, as Britain, unlike most continental European countries, considers liner an integral part of packaging. Ecology is a hot political potato everywhere in Europe, with packaging often at the heart of the debate. Whether a post-Brexit Britain will be more pro- or anti-packaging is an open question.

The Rings of Saturn
What is not an open question is that when many Brits hear the word Brussels they suffer a rush of blood to the head. This antipathy was not helped when two weeks ago the baggage handlers at Brussels airport went on strike. The chaos, according to a baggage-deprived eyewitness, was indescribable. A vast mountain of baggage (18,000 pieces if you believe the Belgian press) was piled to the ceiling. The technology to stop strikes has not yet been invented, but it raises the question whether airline baggage identification can be improved with new technology. Today’s baggage tags, which use the good old bar code, can be torn off or rendered unreadable; several attempts have been made to replace them with RFID tags, described by their proponents as “100% reliable” (and if you believe that…). RFID does, however, offer one big advantage: it does not require line-of-sight scanning, so a pallet of a hundred cases (but not, perhaps, 18,000) can be scanned instantaneously. Qatar Airways, for example, now invites its passengers to track their luggage themselves through an app. Other companies are also helping to smooth the baggage path. It is far from certain that all this advanced technology will put an end to the old joke alleging that the rings of Saturn are entirely composed of lost airline baggage.

West African Sales Success
For a small country, Denmark is remarkably present on the world label scene. Label press manufacturer Nilpeter has a worldwide sales network, but not every day can it report a sale in the Ivory Coast. Socipack, a packaging producer in the capital Abidjan, has recently installed a Nilpeter FA-6* flexo label press. Managing director of Socipack, Hassan Abdallah, said he chose an 8-color Nilpeter FA-6* press “to ensure the highest level of quality of labels, to meet the growing trend for short run production of new, innovative and integrated packaging designs, and to deliver on special targeted and customized orders.”

The new press has enabled the company to expand its portfolio to include high quality PS labels, sleeves and wraparounds. A second Nilpeter press

is on the cards for 2018, according to Abdallah. Label equipment makers wanting to emulate this African success might care to note that Ivory Coast, along with Senegal, are the two most developed countries in French-speaking West Africa.

Edale Looks West
The falling value of the British pound has given a temporary boost to the UK’s exporting companies, among whom Edale is not the least. This press manufacturer has secured a press sale with California-based Geo Labels. James Boughton, managing director of Edale, said,“The US market had always been something Edale has been wary of due to the strength of the local manufacturers, however since our old philosophy of manufacturing simple flexo presses changed to now manufacturing the most automated equipment within the industry, our success has really opened our eyes to the potential within this market.”

Concentration in France
Every year, the French label magazine Etiq & Pack produces a ranking of the country’s Top 100 label producers, and the year to mid-2017 has been outstanding for the number of mergers and acquisitions, in particular by foreign label groups. The Italian Eurostampa acquired Poly’Imprim, a label converter based in the town of Cognac (no prizes for guessing what labels they specialize in), and Printeos, based in Spain, bought out the Le Mée Group, a $50 million package and label group, which had itself grown by acquiring a string of smaller French label converters. The French magazine reckons that, as a result of these and other acquisitions, the top 20 label plants in France now account for 37% of total label production. There is also some evidence that French label producers are moving into wide web and point-of-sale publicity, markets which for the moment are less concentrated. Another trend noted in this year’s study of the French market is the rapid increase in numbers of digital presses. There are currently a little short of 200 roll-to-roll digital presses in the country, and the numbers are growing daily, with HP Indigo and Xeikon, unsurprisingly, leading the pack. Newcomers to the French scene include digital inkjet press manufacturers Mouvent (Switzerland) and New Solution (Portugal).

Time To Come Clean
Plenty of companies make narrow web presses and label inks. Not so many specialize in the essential task of cleaning the equipment. Danish company Flexo Wash (a regular exhibitor at Labelexpo Europe) is a leader in this field and recently installed one of its anilox cleaners at Flint Group’s Global Innovation Center in Malmo, Sweden. Other Danish companies were also well represented at Labelexpo Europe 2017, including Nilpeter (of course), and print/finishing equipment manufacturers Grafisk Maskinfabrik, Lundberg, TrojanLabel, Vetaphone and DPL Industri. With a total of twelve exhibitors (for a population of under six million) Denmark scores proportionally higher than Germany (see table) in the Labelexpo exhibitor stakes!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
This year’s Labelexpo in Brussels, apart from being the “fairest of them all” (as the organizers confidently predicted), also reflected the predominance of German exhibitors (see table). After discounting magazines and trade organizations, there were around 550 exhibitors at the show, and 18% of them, or almost one in five, hailed from the industrial powerhouse which is Germany.  Britain and Italy pretty much tied for second place, while France, Spain and Switzerland lagged well behind the leaders. There were officially 52 US exhibitors, but this is certainly an underestimate as many North American manufacturers were listed under their European offices.

A Cautionary Tale
In a recent Europe News column, we reported on a French printing magnate who found himself behind bars. Now comes news that the Turin financial police have arrested a former kingpin of the Italian printing industry, one Vittorio Farina, 62, accused, according to the charge sheet, of “bancarotta fraudolenta aggravata” (do you really need a translation?). The events that put Signor Farina in jail concerns the 2016 bankruptcy of his printing company Ilte. This recent robust action by the financial police is further proof, if proof were needed, that in Italy company bosses (and even some politicians!) are not above the law.