Iggesund’s Invercote G, available via Antalis, is one option for high quality cartons
Many SRA3 digital presses are capable of printing small cartons that can attract high margins when coupled with quality finishing, but it’s still a developing field. Michael Walker investigates the options.
They say the best things come in small packages, which is good news for owners of sheet-fed digital presses, as small packages are one of the things that they can probably print and which may help them attract news business and make a decent margin. Coupled with high quality finishing, especially embellishment like foiling, clear toner or textured effects, it’s possible to create short-run or even personalised cartons for small high-value products that ooze quality and provide much sought-after differentiation both for the printer and for the client.
But what are you going to print them with and what are you going to print them on? Conventional packaging is a highly specialist business that’s done with big expensive sheet-fed litho or flexo web presses running tens of thousands of sheets and hour or hundreds of metres a minute. Although there are digital presses starting to edge into this territory, particularly in corrugated applications, the majority of sheet-fed SRA3 or “long sheet” digital presses are never going to get anywhere near this in terms of productivity or unit cost.
As with other types of digital print, the answer is in the value to the customer, not the cost to the printer. Being able to produce very short runs of custom packaging for high value items presents a very different proposition to brand owners, especially if you can do it quickly. If you’re selling cornflakes in supermarkets, you want to keep the box as cheap as possible. If you’re selling expensive perfumes, cosmetics, spirits, luxury foods or personal care products via boutique retail stores, the packaging is very much part of the brand appeal and exclusivity; timely targeted versioning and in some cases, direct personalisation to the end-customer, all add value.
The carton’s visual and tactile appeal can be further enhanced by use of metallic substrates overprinted with white and process colours, or metallic effects such as those offered by Color-Logic software, in conjunction with variable foiling and laminating with clear ‘spot gloss’ effects – as demonstrated by last October and December’s Digital Printer front covers from Vivid and GMP – or the textural varnish effects achievable with dedicated embellishment devices like those from MGI or Scodix.
Carton examples from Konica Minolta’s Prokom 2017 event, printed on the Accurio Jet KM-1 and finished with MGI JetVarnish
Weight or thickness?
While most digital presses can cope with stocks up to around 300gsm or more, what becomes more important if you’re looking at making cartons is the actual thickness (caliper) of the media. Folding carton board has a multi-layered structure that makes it thicker weight for weight than card but in return gives better stiffness and rigidity to the finished box. How well this material will perform in a given press depends not only on it not being too thick to feed in the first place but also on the exact paper path – sharp angles around bars can cause some boards to crack, for example, and different models in the same manufacturer’s range that are externally similar may vary inside.
Generally, the higher performance models in any range also support the broadest range of substrate weights and some vendors offer specific upgrades to extend their capabilities; Kodak, for example, offers a substrate expansion kit hardware upgrade for the Nexpress that enables it to print on boards of up to 610 microns and synthetic materials up to 356 microns.
Cutting down larger sheets for use in digital presses is also critical. John Vic, sales director for digital media at Premier Paper Group, points out that while accuracy of plus or minus 2mm is acceptable for litho presses, digital models require a much tighter ±0.5mm tolerance for squareness to ensure jam-free feeding. Mr Vic also cautions that dealing with the printed paper or board after it exits the press presents potential challenges as well, in terms of grain direction for the creasing and folding that are essential finishing operations in carton making: ‘Most digital presses are designed for short grain stock but creasing and folding for regular rectangular box shapes will require going both with and across the grain so the substrate’s texture and suppleness for pre-creasing will matter,’ he says.
So it’s a good starting point to talk to your press manufacturer or their local agent as well as to your paper supplier. Both groups are currently doing a lot of work to test and certify different materials for use with the various machines in use, though support in this application varies by manufacturer. Canon, for example, supplies its own branded media for its cut-sheet presses, but only goes up to 300 or 350gsm depending on machine, and doesn’t currently offer anything dedicated for packaging. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t run cartonboard on an imagePress but seek advice first and be prepared for some suitably cautious experimentation.
Ricoh Europe’s application and innovation manager Andy Campbell says his company has put a lot of effort into researching stocks and that access to the media specialist team at its Telford site is part of normal customer service. Ricoh also offers advanced operator training that allows press variables such as fuser temperature and pressure to be varied in order to optimise results with particular media and Mr Campbell says that they have had successful results on metallised substrates like Kernow Print Metallik, printing white then CMYK on top to achieve a variety of effects. Good results have also been achieved with UltraSilver from German manufacturer MDV in conjunction with Color-Logic software; work with the Kurz DM-Liner and Vivid laminators has also increased the range of substrates that can be used and allows standard CMYK-only presses to achieve metallic effects.
Board options
So which actual stocks might you use? Katie Farr, head of marketing for Print and Visual Communications at Antalis, suggests Invercote G from Iggesund, a range of high quality graphical boards developed specifically for digital presses, that she says ‘has revolutionised the possibilities in packaging with opportunities for imaginative shapes and first-class prints’. Invercote G is a one-sided solid bleached board with an “ultra-smooth” surface that features a matt, triple coating on one side which can support ‘the most sophisticated printed images and meet the demands of flawless foil and film lamination’.
Ms Farr adds that ‘the board offers practical qualities such as a superior strength, thanks to the composition of solid bleached primary fibres. Despite being engineered for rigidity, Invercote G can also be effortlessly folded and creased whilst avoiding the risk of unsightly surface cracks. This strength gives several advantages for carton designing and processing.’
Invercote G is certified for HP Indigo presses and Kodak’s Nexpress but is also compatible with other dry toner presses. For more graphically demanding applications, Ms Farr recommends Invercote Creato which is said to offer the strengths of the G range but with “outstanding” printing on two sides.
Iggesund’s technical service manager Ian Huskinson points out that although Invercote isn’t specifically made for the digital market, most of its boards are certified for digital presses and he also mentions Incada, a folding box board that’s made in the UK and is routinely used in non-digital printing of packaging for cosmetics, healthcare, confectionery and pharmaceutical products. Incada is currently undergoing certification for use with HP Indigo presses and is already qualified by Kodak for the Nexpress, by Fujifilm for the JetPress 720S and by Xerox for its iGen models; Mr Huskinson adds that all Iggesund’s products are qualified for Xeikon presses and settings “scripts” for using them are available from Xeikon. Ricoh’s Andy Campbell reports that Incada 300gsm works with its Pro C7100 press but that the 350gsm version doesn’t; the Pro C9100 fares better. Mr Huskinson also predicts that more users will move to multi-layer cartonboards rather than heavy coated stocks, to achieve the necessary stiffness for packaging applications.
John Vic says that Premier Paper is currently engaged in testing “half a dozen” stocks with customers to gauge applicability and demand. So far products from ranges such as Ensocoat, Condat Digital, Symbol Card and Splendorlux have been used successfully and Mr Vic expects to have more results and recommended products over the coming months.
Printing small boxes probably wasn’t on your agenda when you bought your sheet-fed digital press, but it’s a fast developing field where the strengths of digital for fast set-up and very short run open up opportunities for profitable new types of work.
The future’s orange
Birmingham-based HP Indigo house PCL Digital produced more than 180 of these distinctive orange confectionery boxes to promote its ability with packaging production that includes variable data with gold and silver foiling.
The variable data aspect was handled via HP SmartSstream Designer software and the cartons were printed on 280gsm Invercote using an HP Indigo 5500 six colour press with the Pantone orange as a fifth colour and white as the sixth. After soft-touch lamination with a Foliant Vega laminator the foiling was added in two stages, using a Foliant multi-functional imprinting unit from IFS.
This involved printing a layer of black toner to determine the placement of the silver foil which was then applied via the Foliant inprinter. The process was repeated for the gold foil.
PCL managing Nick Westley-Smith says, ‘Currently packaging is under 10% or our business and I would like that to grow to 20 to 30%. This project really demonstrated what is possible. We have had a lot of interest and positive feedback in the foiling process from our customers and we look forward to using it much more.’
