At this year’s event in the northern Italian town of Novara ERA welcomed over a hun-dred delegates from European packaging and decorative gravure printers, engravers and the supply industry. The conference subjects focused on both packaging and decorative gravure markets, and the event concluded with highly interesting visits to the plants of cylinder engraver ICR in Origgio and packaging converter Goglio in Daverio.  

ICR Ioannou of Greece presented its newly developed innovative cylinder concept which eases the logistics of the gravure workflow. Nikos Stamatis of ICR, assisted by his colleague Michalis Vardavoulias, showed and explained their lightweight alumini-um gravure cylinder. As aluminium is significantly lighter than steel – the traditional material for gravure cylinders – the weight of the standard cylinder for packaging gravure with a web width of 1,20 m is reduced to below 20 kg, allowing shipment to the customers by conventional parcel services. The problem of bonding copper to aluminium has been solved successfully. In the course of the event ICR received for their aluminium cylinder an innovation prize of this year’s ERA Packaging Gravure Award.

Another innovative lightweight cylinder concept was presented by Alwin Göring and Stefan Heßeling of Saueressig. Even though their m-Roll cylinder is steel based, substantial weight reduction is achieved by the foam filling. Therefore, cheap and fast shipping with regular parcel services, as well as fast intercontinental transport is possible. Due to its lighter weight and smaller volume also the warehousing of the m-Roll cylinder is much easier and cost saving. And copper plating and engraving can be made without problems by all conventional methods.

Presentations by all relevant gravure press manufacturers on their latest press technology and new features rounded off the innovation show:

Arturo Bergamaschino of Cerutti Packaging Equipment referred to their new 98X presses which were developed from the successful 980 series. Their characteristics are higher flexibility and efficiency as e.g. job change time is reduced. Cerutti’s proven capability to meet the demanding requirements of the gravure printers has not suffered since the restructuring of the company has been concluded successfully.

Thomas Reckert of Bobst spoke on the MW range of packaging presses for “minimized waste”. Job changeover waste is reduced to a minimum, which enables short runs to be produced profitably. The press is operated from ground level, no gallery is needed. A repeat length of as little as 300 mm is possible. Meanwhile 30 machines are installed in the field.

On behalf of Windmöller & Hölscher Markus Bauschulte described their “efficiency accelerator”. This provides higher utilization through shorter setups with fast data input. Wherever possible, operator choices are replaced by fixed values or automation, which reduces variability and secures reliable quality. Another interesting feature: the ink trays are washed and cleaned within the press without spray nozzles.          

How to achieve accurate and consistent brand colours was discussed by Giovanni Vigone of Esko’s Italian office. New developments enable colour control, e.g. of Coca-Cola red or Milka lilac, by spectral measurement and communication. Kishore Sarkar of Daetwyler SwissTec referred to the function of modern packaging for the distribution of consumer goods. Against this background he highlighted the role of high quality doctor blades in packaging printing. Stephan Doppelhammer of QuadTech raised the issue of web inspection for decorative printing. 100% web inspection is now possible, and a defect map can be generated, so that faulty print areas can be removed from the reel at the rewinder.  

A highly interesting presentation on the digital printing strategy of a leading decorative gravure printer was held by Robert Bierfreund of Interprint. Since the customer needs for smaller volumes and fast design changes have increased, the decorative printers have to consider new technical solutions to meet this demand: a volume range of up to half a tonne could therefore be covered by digital printing. While digital proofing is common in all Interprint plants worldwide they soon will install a digital production press with a web width of 750 mm and a running speed of 75 m/min. He concluded that the “race is on” for the players to offer digital short-run solutions to the market.

Waltraud Leiking-van der Aa of BauschLinnemann, design facility of a leading decorative printer, then guided the audience through the world of decorative design development, and showed the trends for decorative furniture and flooring. She distinguished between fashion and trends: whereas fashion only has a short season, a trend lasts for five to thirty years. Currently retro designs and found objects are en vogue.          

Dr Bert Hoffmann of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) spoke on “Brazil – a new horizon”, a country with a stunning economic development over the last fifteen years. He took the participants on a journey through an emerging market with a great potential for packaging and decorative gravure. Actually some ERA member firms have already invested in Brazil to use the favourable momentum. Despite the current protests against the inefficiency of public services, as well as the cooling down of the economy which is still based on the export of raw materials, the World Bank forecasts a further growth of the GDP over the next five years. And consumption will also expand, as due to the active social policy, more than half of the 200 million Brazili-ans belong to the middle class and have a significant income available to spend.

Two presentations on health and safety matters concluded the conference. Dr Osvaldo Bosetti of Goglio reported about the SafEmTech project on the possible impact of adhesives on the safety of food packaging. EU is supporting this project which is being carried out by Goglio in cooperation with the University of Zaragoza in Spain. Research shows that EvOH (ethyl vinyl alcohol polymers) can be used as an effective functional barrier to protect against migration of non-intentionally added substances (NIAS).

Another theme of high importance for the gravure industry is the ongoing authorization process for chromium trioxide. Josef Bernard of the ERA explained the reasons for the listing of chromium trioxide as a dangerous substance according to the EU REACH legislation. This means that chrome plating will be banned unless an authorization for its further use is obtained. The industry has therefore formed a consortium to secure the authorization. On behalf of the gravure industry ERA is collaborating in the consortium.

A highlight of the conference was the presentation of the winners of this year’s ERA Packaging Gravure Award which took place during the evening social event. Trophies for the best printed packaging material were presented to the gravure printers Hatzopoulos from Greece and Ukrplastic from Ukraine. In the innovation category, awards went to Greek company ICR Ioannou for their light aluminium cylinders, and to Schepers for the Digilas Direct 2100 with micro direct structuring of surfaces by use of ultra-short-pulse lasers. A commendation was given to GMG for their OpenColor software for colour management of spot colour overprints, and the special commendation for the best entry from a newcomer went to Greek ERA member Tsimis.

On the second day the conference delegates were shown two significant gravure facili-ties: the tour started with a visit to the cylinder engraver ICR in Origgio. The company, which is owned by the Maggioni family, produces about 18 000 cylinders per year for packaging and decorative gravure with state-of-the-art equipment. Of particular interest was the Acigraf line which images cylinders by electrolytic copper removal. The tour continued with a visit to the Goglio plant in Daverio. The company is one of the largest packaging converters in Europe with ten production facilities in Europe, the Americas and China. More than 50 % of their production is coffee packaging. Their Daverio plant is equipped with the latest gravure and converting technology. Among others they operate modern Cerutti presses. The excellently organised presentation of their impressive plant gave a perfect impression of gravure’s outstanding capabilities in the manufactur-ing of flexible packaging.