Page 37 - Packaging News magazine July-August 2022

July – August 2022 | www.packagingnews.com.au | DIGITAL PRINT FOR PACKAGING
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this means printers will be able to switch between jobs without having to change ink sets.
The new V12 sees the labelstock go through a primer unit, then into the six-station 12-colour print engine. The ink is laid down onto a blanket, and then transferred to the stock at 1600dpi, which is twice the resolution of the HP Indigo 6K.
The company says an HP Indigo 6K or 8K operator will be able to be trained to run the V12 in “a couple of months”. HP believes young talent will be attracted to run the press.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Among other presentations given to the printers during the tour, label and flexibles printers heard Eli Mahal, head of label and packaging product management, bring them up to date with the latest developments.
Mahal outlined HP Indigo’s market position, which he said was 68 per cent of the digital label market in the mid-sized and above machines it oper- ates in. He said HP sells two thirds of the 400+ label presses annually in that sector with its HP Indigo 6K and HP Indigo 8K.
He also said HP Indigo label press customers were growing at 3.5 times the growth of the mar- ket overall, while HP Indigo flexibles press users were growing at 10 times the growth of the market.
HP reckons that each HP Indigo 25K digital flexibles press generates an average of US$3m a year in revenue for the print business. The 300th has just been installed.
According to Mahal, the global size of the label market is 28 billion square metres, with HP Indigo presses print- ing around 1.1 billion square metres of that. He outlined four key areas
in HP’s roadmap for the growth of its customers: sustainability, speed, automation, and a wider applications range.
DIGITAL FLEXIBLES
Digital flexibles is a key market for HP Indigo, with its HP Indigo 25K press created to serve the market, which HP says is worth around US$110bn now and which will rise by a third in the next four year to hit US$143bn by 2026.
HP says three quarters of all flex- ible packaging jobs are produced for food, with meat, fish, poultry, con- fectionery and dried foods among those that are the big perform- ers for this fast growing market. HP says the big brands are moving from rigids to flexibles, because they believe it is better for storage, trans- port and for shelf appeal.
With the focus on short-run, mul- tiple SKUs, on demand production, colour, graphics and personalisation, HP says the market for digital flexibles is going to surge – to ten times its size.
According to HP, digital flexibles account for just 0.5 per cent of the entire flexible market, giving digital a 99.5 per cent growth opportunity. Nimrod Cohen, head of product at HP Indigo, told PKN, “It’s a blue ocean, and one that early adopters are already exploiting.”
ABOVE: 120 metres a minute: HP V12 is going into beta testing.
RIGHT: Printed by HP Indigo: a wide range of applications was on display at the factory.
HP sees the classic pathway to digital flexibles starting with an HP Indigo 6K or 8K, along with a lami- nator, slitter and pouchmaker, with the dedicated flexible HP Indigo 25K the next step when the business is established.
Cohen cited the rise of ePac – which was only founded six years ago, and is now the biggest customer of HP Indigo 25K presses, with 55 so far installed at its plants around the world, includ- ing two in Melbourne – as a business that had identified the trends outlined above and had created a service for that market, with its target of small and medium sized bespoke brands who could order their flexible pack- aging on demand.
Cohen also gave the example of a Lithuanian label printer, which had ventured into digital flexibles with a pouchmaking line, using its HP Indigo 6K label press, before investing in an HP Indigo 25K, and experienc- ing 100 per cent growth in the year.
Label printers on the HP Indigo VIP tour certainly gained plenty of insight into emerging opportunities, and the way in which HP Indigo technol- ogy is being developed to meet those opportunities. ■
With the focus on short-run, multiple SKUs, on demand production, colour, graphics and personalisation, the market for digital flexibles is going to surge.”