Lift-off time for sticky labels

13 October 2006



The sticky label business cannot be accused of being stuck in its ways. An environmental solution for self-adhesive liner paper has arrived; linerless technology is on the march; and a new wave of smart, clever and niche products is rolling in. Jo Hunter reports


A commercial breakthrough for an environmental solution for self-adhesive liner paper has come just in time before regulations toughen up for its recycling and disposal.

Skanem and US paper reprocessing specialist Maratech are developing a sustainable programme to recycle the liner component of self-adhesive labels and a large brand owner, who cannot yet be named, is said to be commercially integrating the programme into its sites in the UK and mainland Europe. This involves the collection of rolls of spent waste liner material for after-use activities: reuse, reprocessing and disposal in energy-from-waste systems.

“Everyone would love to have a linerless option,” says David Harrisson, multi-national sales director of Skanem and president of the self-adhesive label trade association FINAT. “But it costs a lot to develop, and there are no economies of scale or industry confidence to invest in big-ticket machinery.” He identified examples of failed commercial attempts including “Solo” from SE Labels (now Skanem).

Skanem, says Harrisson, offers “a kind of linerless” which is replacing cardboard sleeves, notably for food applications, with a wraparound sleeve label in heavy paper or board, inkjet-printed with variable data and promotional messages. It is part adhesive-coated on the underside and silicon-coated on top.

The liner is functional and intrinsically important, Harrisson explains that, as it carries the label, the label is die-cut against it and it is the intermediary for the pressure adhesive. For the decorative applications in which Skanem specialises the liner option wins over linerless because it is practical, and highly flexible in design terms.

Environmentally Maratech and Skanem are addressing the waste liner issue in a recycling programme based on a no-cost principle aimed at large users of self-adhesive labels such as brand owners.

Maratech collects the waste liner for integration into a sustainable chain such as that currently operating in India, where it is being reprocessed to make hand towels. The material can also be used in greetings cards, the interleaves of shirts and automotive filters. Along with the growing markets of China and the Far East, Russia is now home to reprocessed liner converting equipment, in St Petersburg.

So, can linerless labels ever be as practical and functional as traditional self-adhesive labels?

“There are limits,” says Mike Cooper, head of business development at Catchpoint, a UK specialist in linerless label manufacture, “but we don't yet know where the limits are.

“The engineering for high-speed beer bottles will provide a significant challenge, and is not even being considered, whereas vitamin containers labelled at 50-250 a minute is viable now”, he says. “Limits will emerge but it must be seen as a long term opportunity. The technology is not going to mushroom and not going to decimate the current label business.”

What does a printer have to do in practical terms to adopt the alternative label format?

“It depends on the chemistry,” answers Cooper. Something to be faced up to is the fact that laminators such as Avery Dennison and Raflatac cover the market with their libraries of application knowledge and offer thousands of face material, adhesive and silicon combinations for unique applications and niche uses. “Linerless has to find applications where the technology fits, and match that adhesive know-how over time,” adds Cooper.

With the addition of three stations a printer with a UV flexo press for use in food applications can print linerless in-line - using one station for the primer, one for the silicon and one for print-cure adhesive. As to capital cost, Catchpoint is working with three international manufacturers of coating and finishing machinery costing between £50,000 to £500,000 depending on options.

Good financial prospects for linerless are forecast in the food sector, for long-run standard applications. The cashflow benefits to printers are “significant” says Cooper, but for end users the savings are nowhere near the 50% mark that some users predict on the basis of halving the volume of material used in the production of linerless. Adhesives and silicone are a more significant element of cost than is often appreciated, he explains. The reality is that label direct-cost savings can be as little as 2-3% in material cost for the end user.

A company that produces branded products on a massive scale such as plastic soup cups with many variations can carry huge stock on the factory floor and they could halve the space taken up in liner. That is storage cost and delivery cost saved, and with double the number of labels per reel, there are fewer label changeovers and less downtime. Moreover, the environmental benefits and disposal costs are cut, and long-term savings can be 5-25%, depending on the application.

Direct label production costs benefits could, in fact, be neutral. “One fact that is clear to me, as a promoter of linerless technology, is that we have to educate as to the true cost saving to licensees and brand owners through to retailers,” says Cooper.

What a printer is buying into his business is an in-house label finishing capability. With self-adhesive laminated face paper around £0.25 per square metre bought in, the material input cost can be halved by DIY-finishing of a linerless label: the printer can absorb the existing laminator's value-added element. “Printers can't continue just to put ink on paper”, contends Cooper. “Investment in this sector is going east to where the cheap labour market is, and laminators will follow”.

“Our distinctive technology that uses micro perforations defines the label. You don't have engineering limitations.” And engineering developments will enable firms to run both formats on the same machine with quick and easy changeover.

Linerless is making the biggest inroads in the USA, where three Catchpoint-licensed printers are working on finding niche markets and on developments towards reliability within linerless application equipment. Customer interest is coming on the back of this testing and outcomes could emerge by year-end.

Four printers in Europe are in trials, including a Scandinavian food group looking to find the break-even cost and real change in downtime - “a thoroughly costed exercise”, says Cooper.

A New Zealand licensee has landed its first order in a country where the environmental benefit swings the vote for linerless, helped by the fact there are no home-based laminators. Bottled water and hand-applied promotional labels are the biggest applications.

The pharmaceutical and health sector is seen as ripe for linerless growth - it has technical competence in-house and “doesn't need its hand held”. Catchpoint is targeting the vitamin market, with test sites in the UK and Germany.

Some printers admit to wasting 20-50% of materials in total and to get down to the required price level, they are printing three months' stock. However, should the artwork change, then producers could end up throwing away 5-10% of input material, according to Cooper.

It is a complex equation and environmental pressure, he believes, is going to alter the balance. Only the UK currently classifies the liner as waste; in Germany it is collected for use as fuel in cement operations, for example.

To the argument that complex shapes are not possible with linerless, Cooper hits back by arguing that with clear labels it is possible to achieve the appearance of a decorative shape by printing. A rectangular label and artwork control allow a shape to be defined with the “catchpoints”.

Catchpoint's message is to get rid of the liner in big volume uses. Logistics labelling is “perfect” for linerless, and in the retail food market Lurpak and Tulip in Scandinavia have taken a lead. But Cooper concludes that if retailers and brand owners pressure suppliers on price only, and do not understand the full cost implications and environmental impact represented by the liner, the linerless industry will not attract the investment needed to reduce waste. “There is always someone with a lower price per 1000 labels, but is this actually the lowest total applied cost? This is a very complex argument and oversimplification can mislead”.

Hot-off-the-press news comes from Stora Enso Global Speciality Papers, which introduced its LumiSil LO universal release liner base paper for automated high-speed self-adhesive labelling at Labelexpo Americas.

And BASF has advanced adhesive coating technology with a special multilayer die that allows up to three different layers of adhesive to be applied at the same time onto the carrier material. For coating adhesive labels, it means that an oxygen barrier or UV-absorbent layer can be integrated between two layers of adhesive without the need for three production stages, providing time and cost savings.

An effective labelling system can be part of a routine to meet HACCP rules and other regulations, says Bill Knox, managing director of Weber Marking Systems UK and Ireland.

“Simple measures such as colour coding can be used, either to enable manufacturers to easily recognise different production batches or for caterers to be able to distinguish product ranges or recipe variations.

“Equally important,” he explains, “label creation software packages can also provide a central database store so companies can easily call off production data and keep detailed records for traceability purposes.”

Weber's latest entry-level label printer-applicator Model 2600Lt integrates Sato's Lt408 direct-thermal/thermal-transfer print engine, to print 203dpi text, barcodes and graphic images at speeds up to 6in/sec and dispense labels up to 4.25in wide and 6in in long. Labels are printed and instantly tamp-blow applied to cartons or products on the production or packaging line.

A smart label that measures elapsed time for periods up to one year comes from Timestrip, of Hitchin, UK. Once activated, a non-toxic liquid dye travels across the label at a consistent rate to show how much time has passed since a product was opened. The company says the system will help answer the call from Brussels for cosmetics and personal care product manufacturers to encourage use of products within 12 months of opening. And “huge potential” for Timestrip lies in the frozen food sector, jump-started by an order from European distributor, Labellord. Food giant Nestle is already using three-day Timestrips on standard packaging for its Maggi ready sauces.

Where label application speed with accuracy is key, B&H Labeling Systems' Marathon XLU roll-fed labeller will handle containers from 8oz to 3litre at up to 700/min thanks to “the industry's first all-electric drive train”. The Marathon series has optional handle orientation to apply labels in relation to the handle precisely every time.

Business-wise, UPM Raflatac has kept up the momentum with the opening of a pressure-sensitive labelstock production site in Guangzhou in southern China this summer, coming on the heels of a new operation in Jakarta, Indonesia. In the US meanwhile, a $109m factory at Dixon, Illinois, is due for completion early 2008.

There is wide scope for self-adhesive labelling - with liner and without - to be explored and exploited for its decorative and smart capabilities by designers, brand managers, print and packaging technologists and production people, believes FINAT. And by spreading the word among the buyers and beyond, FINAT hopes that the message - like its labels - will stick.


David Harrisson, of Skanem, the company leading a bid to ... David Harrisson, of Skanem, the company leading a bid to ...
Weber's 2600Lt printer-applicator will print 203dpi text, barcodes and graphic ... Weber's 2600Lt printer-applicator will print 203dpi text, barcodes and graphic ...
Three-day Timestrips are being applied on Nestle Maggi ready sauces ... Three-day Timestrips are being applied on Nestle Maggi ready sauces ...
Linerless self-adhesive labels are waste-free and can help printers stand ... Linerless self-adhesive labels are waste-free and can help printers stand ...
B&H Labeling Systems' Marathon XLU roll-fed labeller has optional handle ... B&H Labeling Systems' Marathon XLU roll-fed labeller has optional handle ...
A tasty selection of Skanem's decorative and informative self-adhesive labelling ... A tasty selection of Skanem's decorative and informative self-adhesive labelling ...
The Label-Aire 3115 applicator is one of the machines which ... The Label-Aire 3115 applicator is one of the machines which ...


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