What are the new trends in Sticky label technology development?

What are the new trends in Sticky label technology development?

According to the latest statistics from the Label Printing Branch of China Printing and Equipment Industry Association, the total output value of China's label printing industry in 2015 reached 35 billion yuan, an increase of 7.8% over the previous year; An increase of 5.6%. Although the growth rate of the total output value of the label printing industry has decreased from 10% in 2014, it is still higher than other printed products.

There are many kinds of labels. According to the data released by AWA, the top three application fields in the Asian label market are beverages, food, daily chemicals and personal care, accounting for 43%, 26% and 9% respectively. Of all the labels, basic product labels accounted for 80%, variable data printing labels accounted for 13%, and functional labels and promotional labels accounted for 4% and 3%, respectively. In the Asian market, the labels of fruit-flavored beverages and tea beverages are higher than the global average. In the future, fruit juice and pulp beverages, sports beverages and coffee beverages will have a lot of room for development. China is the main driver of market growth in Asia, and the development of the label industry will change with the changes in the end market.

Looking at Labelexpo 2015 and the drupa 2016 exhibition that just ended, we may see several new trends in the development of label technology.

The digital age has arrived

Digital printing offers unique advantages in short runs, variable data, and personalized printing. In the field of label printing, since traditional printing can no longer meet the needs of personalized printing and variable data printing, the market's growing demand for digital printing is very obvious.

At last year's Labelexpo 2015, exhibitors displayed more than 50 different digital printing equipment, many of them from new companies. One-fifth of the products on display were digital flexographic printing equipment. The addition of digital units to flexographic printing equipment by traditional printing equipment suppliers has become a hot spot in the future development of label printing. This is also reflected in drupa 2016.

In addition, many traditional and digital printing manufacturers in China have also launched digital label printing solutions, such as Peking University Founder, Weifang Eastern Airlines, Lucky Huaguang, Liaoning Baoch, etc.

Intelligent development is imminent

In developed countries such as Europe and the United States, RFID technology has been relatively maturely applied in the fields of transportation, asset management, medical care, aviation, and logistics. my country's RFID market has a huge capacity, and it is expected that there will be explosive growth in the next 3 to 5 years, which may completely replace the existing barcodes and QR codes. At present, in my country, RFID technology has been applied in high-end commodities such as smart wine boxes, health care product boxes, flexible packaging products and smart labels.

In addition, Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one of the most promising areas at present, which can transmit product information directly to consumers' NFC smartphones through branded packaging. This technology can be connected to almost any type of digital content. By increasing direct consumer engagement, NFC is changing the interaction between brands and consumers, and beverages are an important application area for the technology. In the near future, anti-counterfeiting labels based on NFC technology may become the best choice for most commodities. According to relevant forecasts, as of 2018, shipments of NFC smartphones will reach 1.2 billion US dollars.

Green products become a trend

According to statistics, the market share of flexographic printing in the United States is as high as 75%, and the market share of flexographic printing in Europe can also reach 50%, while in China, the market share is only about 20%. Therefore, flexographic printing has a broad space for development in China. At present, domestic well-known equipment suppliers have launched the newly developed flexographic printing machines, such as the STF-340-12F flexographic printing machine newly developed by Sun Machinery Co., Ltd. ZJ R-330 flexographic printing machine, intermittent unit flexographic printing machine launched by Liaoning Iwasaki Printing Machinery Co., Ltd. at the exhibition. Among them, the latter can also fully reflect its unique effect in the printing of some high-end daily chemical product labels and film products.

Currently, more than 600 waterless offset presses for Sticky labels are used in Europe, Japan and the United States. In the future, waterless offset printing will play a more important role in the label market.

At Labelexpo 2015 last year, material suppliers also put forward new solutions in terms of environmental protection and sustainable development, such as a sustainable label technology patent launched by Avery; Recycled PET bottles into usable label materials; biodegradable label materials developed by UPM Raflatac, etc.

Post-press processing technology is valued

With the continuous maturity of pre-press and printing technologies, the market development space is becoming more and more limited, and the post-press link has been paid more and more attention by more and more enterprises because it carries more value, and has become the focus of nuggets of printing enterprises. It is understood that foreign mature label printing enterprises can improve the total profit of the enterprise by 30% by improving the post-press processing technology. The importance of the post-press link for label printing enterprises is evident.

In the field of Sticky label printing, the post-press process mainly focuses on die-cutting, hot stamping, varnishing, testing and other processes. Post-press automation has become the key to the improvement of label printing enterprises, and in-line production has also become one of the most valuable ways to improve the post-press link of labels. It is worth noting that more and more label printing companies recognize the value of post-press automation and in-line production, and apply advanced control technology to minimize downtime and improve production efficiency. At Labelexpo 2015, many printing equipments are connected to post-press processing.

In the field of Sticky label post-press processing, laser technology has realized the transformation from the analog processing of traditional mechanical die cutting to the digital processing of laser die cutting, so that commercial label processors can truly enjoy the efficiency and efficiency brought by the digital solution of laser die cutting. flexibility.

Increasing demand for functional Sticky labels

When traditional labels are widely used, end users begin to expect personalized applications brought by new technologies. RFID tags, NFC tags, multi-layer tags, and linerless tags already have a certain customer base, but they are far from widely used due to cost issues. In addition, there is also a type of functional labels worthy of attention, such as temperature-sensitive labels, optically variable labels, dumping labels, vibration labels, etc., which use functional materials such as photoelectric, temperature-sensitive, humidity-sensitive, and gas-sensitive, and have the ability to “identify” and “identify” environmental factors. The "judgment" function is very popular with consumers. Although this type of label has not been widely used due to the price, there are many customers currently consulted, which deserves the attention of label companies and users.

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