Page 36 - Packaging News Magazine Sep-Oct 2021

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COVER STORY | www.packagingnews.com.au | September-October 2021
Pack embellishment: Avon adds
National hot foil stamping and embossing business Avon Graphics is offering packaging converters a new option, with Alumma tool-free foiling and dent-free embossing. Wayne Robinson reports.
EMBELLISHING packaging has long been recognised as a proven method of attracting attention, generating sales, and positioning a product positively in the per- ception of the consumer.
One of the issues with conven- tional hot foil embellishing, though, has been run lengths; the cost of set- ting up hot foil stamping, with its dies, has meant for shorter run work the numbers often don’t add up. And for embossing the loss of the reverse side can be an issue, depending on the type of packaging.
Avon Graphics, the biggest trade embellishing house in the country, offers converters a range of foiling and embossing options, along with a wide range of other trade services, including in-house diemaking. Its
production systems means it is posi- tioned to handle any size run, and sees it produce much of the long run work generated within Australia.
Tate Hone, managing director of the business says, “We have an exten- sive fleet, with 14 presses, mainly Bobst flatbeds. We hot foil, we emboss, and we have a host of other products as well.”
Those other products include holo- grams, 3D effects, Ecolux linerless silver laminates which are fully recy- clable, and a new sterile laminate. The latter is especially useful in the current climate, so for instance a toy box that is picked up and put down by multiple people in a store before it is finally purchased will not transfer any germs from one person to the next – it is anti-bacterial.
ABOVE: Benefits of foil and emboss: Tate Hone (left) CEO, Avon Graphics, with production manager Warren Tee, and an Alumma sheet.
Known for its commitment to inno- vation over the 45 years it has been in the hands of the Hone family, Avon Graphics is now launching a radical new hot-foil solution, Alumma, which includes a foiling solution and also an embossed foil solution, that it says reduce the entry costs, enabling converters to offer it on short run work.
The brand new Alumma embel- lishing process will lay down foil without the need to create dies first, which is why the minimum run length numbers are reduced, and an emboss can be created by laying down raised foil, but without denting out the substrate (as the PKN front cover shows), which means the real estate on the reverse is freed up. In these days of versioning and multiple SKUs, having an embellishing sys- tem that makes short-run work cost effective is a major breakthrough.
BUILDING BLOCKS
It has taken Avon Graphics four years of development including building several prototype machines, to launch its new Alumma systems. The first new two machines are in and running in the Melbourne and Sydney factories, with Brisbane likely to get one in the near future.
Hone says, “We believe in the future of embellishment. It offers brands, agencies, retailers and pack- aging operations the means to present their product in an attention-grab- bing way, providing an aspirational look and feel to the product.
“We are proud of Alumma. It offers dieless operation, and produces really high quality, with everything from fine detail to solids looking great. It will give printers more to offer to their clients.”
One of the benefits of Alumma is its turnaround time. Typically, a full sheet of packaging dies will take around two days to prepare, with makeready often taking many hours on top. Alumma requires minimal makeready time.
It also opens up hot foiling for short run and on-demand work – the pro- cess is cost effective whether you’re running 100 sheets or 10,000 sheets.
For printers’ customers this means