New blank linerless DT labels eliminate liner waste and improve productivity for converters and end users 

 Mentor, OH – Avery Dennison Label and Packaging Materials today introduced a new direct thermal (DT) linerless label platform for variable information labels used in e-commerce, food delivery and pickup, quick serve restaurants, weigh scale, and transportation and logistics applications. By providing a DT linerless solution for these growing, technology-enabled applications, the company has eliminated the liner waste associated with label printing while offering converters a DT labeling solution that reduces matrix waste and improves process efficiency and productivity.  

The new platform uses emulsion adhesives to support semi-permanent and removable applications and ensures consistent adhesive and silicone coating. Plus, it’s 32% thinner than linered labels, and features up to 50% more labels per roll. Available through a flexible service model with roll widths from 4 to 60 inches, the platform reduces the number of SKUs converters must stock and eliminates die cuts by offering one roll for every label length. With more labels per roll, converters also benefit from fewer changeovers and higher productivity.

“The move to linerless labels is essential to reducing waste in the labeling industry and this new platform expands the use of these labels to a wide range of applications while offering multiple benefits to converters and end users,” said Kelli Messer, senior marketing director at Avery Dennison. “By eliminating the liner, our self-wound rolls of direct thermal labels deliver up to 50% more labels per roll, resulting in fewer roll changes, faster operations, and more efficient storage and transportation.” 

To learn more about Avery Dennison’s new DT linerless label platform, visit the Avery Dennison web site. 

About Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE: AVY) is a global materials science and manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials. The company’s products, which are used in nearly every major industry, include pressure-sensitive materials for labels and graphic applications; tapes and other bonding solutions for industrial, medical and retail applications; tags, labels and embellishments for apparel; and radio-frequency identification (RFID) solutions serving retail apparel and other markets. Headquartered in Glendale, California, the company employs approximately 32,000 employees in more than 50 countries. Reported sales in 2020 were $7 billion.

Elk Grove Village, IL — SCREEN Americas announces a new high-opacity white mode as an option for its Truepress Jet L350UV SAI S. The new printing mode allows for reduced transparency when applying white ink on clear substrates. The upgrade provides additional value for label manufacturers, particularly those in the beverage industry whose labels are printed on transparent substrates intended for green and brown bottles.

Since color accuracy is imperative for a brand’s image, the new high-opacity white ink printing mode is expected to give owners of the Truepress Jet L350UV SAI S an edge on their competition. “It’s important that the colors in a brand’s logo are not altered due to the label being placed on a bottle, box, or other material that is already colored,” said Mark Schlimme, vice president of marketing for SCREEN Americas. “Furthermore, the overall quality of the image on a package or bottle can have an impact on whether or not someone decides to purchase that particular product.”

The ink configuration of the Truepress Jet L350UV SAI S is CMYK plus white. Owners of the press have the option to add orange and blue to the arrangement. The standard speed using the CMYK+W configuration is 98.5 feet per minute with the option to upgrade to 165 feet per minute.

For printers who did not have the opportunity to see the Truepress Jet L350UV SAI series in action at Labelexpo Americas in Rosemont, Illinois, they can see it in booth number N1625 at PRINTING United Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, from October 19 to October 21, 2022. Additionally, registrants of the SCREEN User’s Group will have a private, advance opportunity to experience the Truepress Jet L350UV SAI series during the PRINTING United UX event which is scheduled to be held just prior to the convention’s opening hours.  

About SCREEN Americas
SCREEN Americas, a SCREEN Graphic Solutions group company established in 1967, is a leading provider of digital inkjet technology serving the commercial, publishing, direct mail, transactional, packaging, and label industries. In 2021, SCREEN Americas relocated its headquarters to Elk Grove Village, Illinois, with an upgrade that included a 14,000-plus square-foot Inkjet Innovation Center.

Diversified Labeling Solutions (DLS) announced today that Jim Kersten, Chief Executive Officer, will retire at the end of 2022 following nearly 12 years of service to the company and a 44-year career in the print industry. As part of an orderly and planned leadership succession process, current Chief Operating Officer, Bill Johnstone, will succeed Kersten as CEO, effective January 1.

Kersten will continue to lead the company until his retirement. He will work closely with Johnstone and the DLS senior leadership team to support a smooth and organized transition that builds upon the company’s momentum in areas of customer solutions, production capacity, and operational excellence.

“Jim has shaped DLS’s purpose, culture and transformation with a relentless focus on creating long-term, sustainable value for customers and employees.” said James Cirigliano, DLS VP of Marketing. “He has built and led an experienced team that has consistently executed a successful business strategy with solid underlying fundamentals. He has helped build a world-class label converting organization with a robust customer base, strong financial position, excellent customer and supplier partnerships, and a talented diverse workforce. Jim has strengthened the business and positioned DLS well for the future.”

While Jim will continue to serve DLS for a few more months, the entire executive team expresses its deep gratitude for his years of dedication, service, and values-driven leadership. “Having worked closely alongside Jim for many years building DLS’s vision for the future, I have seen firsthand his strategic leadership, in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the business, and astute financial acumen. The future for labels is bright and there are significant opportunities ahead.” Cirigliano concluded.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better team of professionals to be part of,” says Kersten. “I am so proud of everyone and all that we’ve accomplished together. When I brought Bill Johnstone on board in 2021 to prepare for this transition, I knew I had the right person to lead DLS to the next levels of success. We pride ourselves on taking care of customers, being efficient, and finding creative ways to grow our business. I am confident that Bill will carry the torch and continue serving all DLS stakeholders well by creating sustainable value both today and for future generations.”

Jim Kersten joined DLS as CEO in January of 2011. He guided the company from $36MM in annual sales to being on track to achieve over $100MM in annual sales in 2022. He played an integral part in building a strong management team, adding automated production capacity, migrating to a new ERP system, expanding the company’s geographic footprint, and building new customer relationships. Jim also brought a strong marketing effort to DLS by hiring talented people and helping cultivate a marketing team that now has best-in-class marketing tools to provide to the company’s distributor base.

Jim is looking forward to new adventures, both personally and professionally. The entire Diversified team thanks him for his leadership, guidance, mentoring, and never-ending support – wishing him all the best in the future. He will be greatly missed.

With decades of combined leadership experience, DLS’s senior leadership team has the breadth and depth to continue to lead the company forward under incoming CEO, Bill Johnstone’s stewardship.

About DLS:
A wholly-owned subsidiary of TSC Auto ID Technology Co. Ltd., DLS has been a preferred B2B supplier of high-quality, custom-printed pressure sensitive labels since 1985. All products, from blank labels to full color high-definition labels, are produced utilizing the latest in flexographic and digital printing technologies. Exemplar of their motto “We only succeed when you do,” DLS’s dedicated team is passionate about labels and is willing to share their expertise with partnered distributors to help them grow their business. With locations in five states and headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, DLS is well-situated to offer products to distributor customers nationwide. To learn more about the dedicated team at DLS, its exceptional offerings and services, or to receive a quote, please visit https://teamdls.com or call 800.397.3013.

Midlothian, TX – Ennis, Inc. (NYSE: EBF), announced today that Mr. Wade Brewer has been appointed to the position of Chief Operating Officer and Mr. Terry Pennington has been appointed as Chief Revenue Officer. Mr. Brewer and Mr. Pennington will continue reporting to Keith Walters, Chairman, President and CEO of Ennis.

Mr. Brewer brings a total of 38 years of print industry experience to the Chief Operating Officer position. He has served as Ennis’ Director of Manufacturing since 2021 and before that, held the title of Business Unit Director for nine years, helping manage all of the company’s 50+ production facilities. Mr. Brewer started his printing career in 1984 at Transkirt as a Senior Product Manager and played an integral part in developing their pressure seal products. Mr. Brewer has also previously held management positions at Ward Kraft, Cenveo, and PrintXcel. During his time with Cenveo, he held the title of Director of Manufacturing and Vice President of Operation – Documents division, where he oversaw 11 different plants, all of which are a part of Ennis today.

Mr. Pennington served in various senior and executive management roles in the printing sector for 26 years before joining Ennis, Inc. in 2006. Mr. Pennington was initially responsible for 15 Ennis printing facilities until 2010 when he assumed Vice President of Sales.  As V.P. of Sales, he was responsible for managing the company’s Regional Sales Managers and supporting the sales efforts of Ennis’ 35,000 independent distributors. Mr. Pennington is a part of the acquisition team that has helped the company diversify the company’s product offerings including envelope manufacturing over 10 years ago. He has played a role in expanding the company’s sales of labels, tags, and commercial print during his tenure by acquisition or new product offerings.

Keith S. Walters, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer noted, “Both Mr. Brewer and Mr. Pennington have proven themselves to be of tremendous value to the company within their respective roles. We are pleased to have these two new officers with such deep industry experience and knowledge helping lead our company.”

About Ennis
Founded in 1909, the Company is one of the largest private-label printed business product suppliers in the United States.  Headquartered in Midlothian, Texas, Ennis has production and distribution facilities strategically located throughout the USA to serve the Company’s national network of distributors.  Ennis manufactures and sells business forms, other printed business products, printed and electronic media, integrated forms and labels, presentation products, flex-o-graphic printing, advertising specialties and Post-it® Notes, internal bank forms, plastic cards, secure and negotiable documents, specialty packaging, direct mail, envelopes, tags and labels and other custom products.

For more information, visit www.ennis.com.

Wisconsin-based Inland Packaging has installed a new Nilpeter FA-17 to increase capacity and expand product lines in label and flexible packaging production for a variety of markets, including household, food, beverage, health and wellness, and others.

Built around the modern printing operator, with an intuitive user-interface and fully mobile print controls, the Nilpeter FA-17 provides a maximum level of stability, the tightest register tolerance, and excellent printing results on multiple substrates: All normal self-adhesive materials, including flexible packaging films, polymer films, metallic films, and paper.

Pushing The Limits
“We had an excellent factory acceptance test with Nilpeter’s demo team. The press held register very accurately, and we were able to push the limits on speed. This is transferring well to the production floor,” says Chad Nellis, Process & Technology Manager, Inland Packaging.

More Operator-Friendly
“We appreciate the partnership and Nilpeter’s ability to continue to make their equipment more operator-friendly in today’s tight market,” Mike Skroch, Vice President Operations, adds.

Looking Forward To A Bright Future
“When Inland Packaging started investigating new equipment to optimize their production demands, the focus was to achieve maximum efficiency and machine uptime. The automation and quick-change features built into every Nilpeter FA-Line provided the foundation to meet all the Inland Packaging objectives. We look forward to a bright future with Inland Packaging as our printing partner,” says Walt Mesik, Senior Sales Consultant, Nilpeter USA.

About Inland Packaging
Inland Packaging is a leading label manufacturer with an impressive track record. Over 75 years, and through three generations of family ownership, the company has sustained its focus on creating value for a variety of markets including household, food, beverage, beer, health and wellness, and others. A combination of high customer satisfaction, a vision of growth with investments in new equipment and facilities, not to mention great employees have expanded Inland Packaging’s capabilities as a label manufacturer and allowed the family-owned company to become the global partner it is today.

www.nilpeter.com

BOBST is pleased to announce that effective Tuesday, September 6, 2022, Matt Bennett has joined BOBST in the position of Label Zone Business Director. Matt will be responsible for sales team leadership and driving revenue and will lead our ambitious growth plan for both flexo and digital technology within the narrow mid web scope.

Matt has been in the printing and packaging industry for over 30 years and has a wealth of experience in labels and digital printing, having spent several years heading up Sales for HP Indigo Labels and Packaging in North America.

“Matt’s understanding of digital printing in the labels space, as well as his strategic planning and experience in sales, marketing and customer service, will help to continue the future growth and success of BOBST’s oneLABEL Portfolio,” said Emilio Corti, BOBST Market Director Americas. “We are delighted to have Matt become a member of our team”.

“I’m thrilled to be leading the digital label and flexographic business for Bobst North America,” said Matt. “BOBST is investing heavily into digital and the overall label press portfolio is second to none. The new digital presses DIGITAL MASTER 340 and DIGITAL MASTER 510 “All In One” will transform the digital label press market and allow for unmatched inline printing, finishing and embellishing”.

About BOBST
We are one of the world’s leading suppliers of substrate processing, printing and converting equipment and services for the label, flexible packaging, folding carton and corrugated board industries.

Founded in 1890 by Joseph Bobst in Lausanne, Switzerland, BOBST has a presence in more than 50 countries, runs 19 production facilities in 11 countries and employs more than 5800 people around the world. The firm recorded a consolidated turnover of CHF 1.563 billion for the year ended December 31, 2021.

www.bobst.com

With the recognition of UniNATURE as overall winner of this year’s Packaging Europe’s Sustainability Awards, Siegwerk once again demonstrates its ability to develop innovative and sustainable ink solutions, further driving the development of circular packaging solutions.

Siegburg, Germany – Siegwerk, one of the leading global providers of printing inks and coatings for packaging applications and labels, today announced that its packaging ink series UniNATURE has won Packaging Europe’s Sustainability Awards 2022. The sustainable ink solution with a high Bio-Renewable Content was not only selected as the winner in the category “Renewable Materials”, but also as the “Most Sustainable Innovation” among all 360 entries from across the global packaging value chain. All winners of the commercialized innovations & initiatives categories of the Sustainability Awards 2022 were revealed on September 13, 2022, at the Sustainable Packaging Summit, in Lisbon, Portugal.

“It is such an honor to be recognized as two-time winner at this year’s Sustainability Awards,” celebrates Christopher van Laack, Vice President Business Units Paper & Board EMEA and Liquid Food Packaging at Siegwerk. “Being selected as winner in the category ‘Renewable Materials’ is already a great success for our UniNATURE series but being awarded the ‘Most Sustainable Innovation’ at the same time is a remarkable triumph for us that shows once again that we are on the right track to significantly drive the development of sustainable packaging.” Siegwerk always invests a lot of time to bring forward-looking solutions to life that enable the design of circular packaging solutions. From R&D through raw material sourcing and industrialization to application technology and sales, there are many teams involved to successfully roll-out a new series to the market. “Our thanks go to all Siegwerkers who helped making UniNATURE a reality – all your hard work is now paying off! You can be proud for achieving this major milestone on our journey to actively promoting packaging circularity,” adds Christopher van Laack. UniNATURE is Siegwerk’s sustainable water-based ink range for paper and board applications that is formulated with natural components and thus partly replaces fossil carbon with biorenewable carbon, concretely contributing to defossilization in the sense of a circular economy. The ink range was one of four finalists nominated in the category “Renewable Materials”.

UniNATURE incorporates up to 50% renewable carbon content which is up to nine times more compared to standard water-based inks, and thus provides an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional inks without impacting the recyclability of paper and board packaging while contributing to reducing microplastics in inks. A combination of natural and conventional resins, from bio-sourced monomers, allows customers to quickly change to UniNATURE as no adjustments to the existing processes, such as speed and color matching, are required. Furthermore, the sustainable ink range comes along with excellent ink performance and color strengths offering similar levels of resistance as current water-based technologies. It offers an improved ink stability and lower VOC content while also enabling high printing speeds on both coated and uncoated papers. UniNATURE is applicable for many paper & board applications including corrugated board boxes, trays and displays, fast food packaging, sacks and bags, as well as cups and wraps. It supports various printing applications whilst meeting the highest market and regulatory standards.

The Sustainability Awards is an international competition for sustainability in packaging annually awarded by the Packaging Europe magazine. The mission of the award is to illuminate the most important sustainable innovation across the packaging value chain. Therefore, winners are selected by an independent expert jury representing a cross-section of the international packaging value chain, including leading brand owners and retailers, sustainability organizations, waste management, academia and industry experts. This year’s competition covered awards in twelve different categories – seven for commercialized products and initiatives, including e.g. Best Practice, Recyclable Packaging or Renewable Materials, as well as five new pre-commercialized categories dedicated to showcase emerging innovation that will hit the market during the next years. The winners of the pre-commercialized categories will be announced later in November. Here, Siegwerk is also nominated in the category “Driving the Circular Economy” for the polycirQ deinking process for printed plastic films, which helps to prevent downcycling of valuable plastic resources.

More information about Sustainability Awards 2022 can be found here: http://thesustainabilityawards.com/

To learn more about Siegwerk’s circular solutions please visit https://www.siegwerk.com/en/circular-economy/our-circular-solutions.html

About Siegwerk
Siegwerk, a sixth-generation family-owned company, is one of the leading international manufacturers of printing inks and individual solutions for packaging, labels, and catalogs. With more than 180 years of experience, the company has solid expertise in and knowledge of many printing procedures. A global manufacturing and service network ensures customers consistently high-quality products and services. In keeping with the company’s philosophy “Ink, Heart & Soul,” Siegwerk seeks long-term cooperation with its business partners. Siegwerk employs some 5,000 people worldwide in more than 30 country organizations and is headquartered in Siegburg near Cologne. Further information on Siegwerk can be found at www.siegwerk.com

Rochester, NY – From September 13-15, 2022 Durst Group was showcasing the highly successful and globally placed Tau RSC technology in booths #3105 and #3123 at LableExpo Americas in Rosemont. In addition to the hundreds of new product launches and live demonstrations from 400 exhibitors, Durst offered a unique experience, showcasing their Ecosystem of printers and software, and provided visitors access to experienced industry experts.

Customers, partners, suppliers and friends from all over the world, primarily from the American continent, visited the booth and were impressed by the technology and innovation of Durst machines and the leading digital inkjet solutions. Durst was showcasing two printers from their Tau RSC Portfolio, which were presented to interested parties during numerous live demos.

• The Durst Tau RSCi, is designed for an industrial level of productivity, this printer offers highest quality, in the most economical way. Available in printing widths of 330, 420 or 510 mm the printer is a real productivity workhorse with printing speeds up to 100m/min. The printer can now be equipped with the new double white feature, increasing the productivity when printing with white ink at highest opacity to 80m/min.

During the show, the Tau RSCi was printing live on sensitive shrink sleeve material outstanding beer can shrink labels at highest productivity.

• Equipped with latest RSC technology, the Tau 330 RSC E combines best in class print quality with an economic investment. Fully upgradable to an 8 color Tau 330 RSC with impressive native 1,200 dpi resolution and a print speed of 80 m/min guarantees superior print quality at all levels of investment.

• Customers could also see for the first time beautiful In-Mold Labels and containers produced with the Tau RSCi. In Mold Labels are an interesting and growing application and it was the first time that Durst showed samples of this application live.

Next to machinery; customers experienced the strong Durst Software portfolio including Durst Workflow Label and Durst Analytics. Dursts competitive software portfolio is a real game changer and helps customers to grow their business. Visitors have received deep insight into the newest features from the experts.

Steve Lynn, Director, Labels and Packaging, comments, “It was great to welcome so many customers, partners, suppliers and friends finally again at Labelexpo. The feedback we received was very positive and customers continue to adapt to digital printing with our leading inkjet solutions at a very high pace. ”

www.durstus.com