Labelexpo India 2024 preview: Elkem South Asia - GEW

Elkem South Asia | Stand: K11

Elkem’s highlight at Labelexpo 2024 will be its Silcolease Brand. It was launched over two years ago in India. The company plans to showcase coated samples at the trade fair. Its Silcolease products are meant to act as liners for label, food and hygiene industries, among others. 

Elkem is over 120 years old and has a worldwide presence with plants in the USA, Korea, China, among others. It also works with industries, such as release coating, personal care, construction, rubber, liquid silicone rubber, textile and leather, and will show samples of release coating products at the booth. 

Eltech Engineers | Stand: D49

Eltech Engineers will exhibit its narrow-web corona treater flexographic printing machine (single and double-side) at Labelexpo 2024. It will also debut the corona treater for double-side treatment at the show.

Eltech manufactures compact yet powerful narrow-web label flexo corona treaters used in flexographic printing presses. The high-definition ridge-type ceramic electrodes ensure efficient treatment of metallised and non-metallised substrates, allowing customers to create good quality labels with surface preparation. 

The product is efficient in its production, cost-efficient, improves print quality, adapts to market trends and allows for digital integration and workflow automation. The company will also showcase its narrow-web corona treater for flexographic printing machines and static eliminators and ionisers.

MUST SEE: Epson | Stand: K14

Epson's focus product at this year’s Labelexpo will be the SurePress L6534VW, which is launching in India for the first time. 

The company will also showcase live demos of the Surepress L6534VW at Labelexpo. The 6534 Inkjet UV digital press offers consistency in colour printing thanks to its precision core micro piezo printhead and comes with built-in digital varnish and white ink. 

This enables the press to produce the most amazing creative labels in a single pass. It is also capable of doing spot, matte and gloss varnish in single-pass printing which helps to bring more value-added products to the market, which is attractive to customers. Another unique feature of the press is that one can do multi-pass (layered) printing.

The SurePress L6534VW is equipped with a precision core printhead and can print at high speed and at a high resolution of 600x1,200-dpi. Its precise silicon nozzles make rounder ink dots and its multi-purpose printhead can help reduce costs. It uses high-sensitivity LED curing UV ink. It has stable feeding by the drum and minimised paper gap and the Accur Easy operation has a touchpad with an intuitive interface. 

The SurePress L6534VW also has the largest Pantone coverage in the four-colour market.

Epson has previously participated in Labelexpo in 2012 and 2016.

Fleuron Inks | Stand: E10

Fleuron Inks plans to launch its Super Star Metallic series of products at Labelexpo. Its star products, the MonoKure pigmented products will be on display too.

Printers consider MonoKure to be mainstream, it cures both, un UV and LED conditions. This Indian brand believes in the power of chemistry, which enables it to help customise its products. Fleuron Inks’ MonoKure, UN, PG, FP and CMP series aids it to achieve custom colour strengths and extended colour ranges.

The company once used its UN ink series on a CoEx tube job to make custom inks. This was so it could provide flexibility and enable printing to the crimping zone. The UN series was compliant because of cosmetic tube applications and delivered an 85–90% success rate in the non-cracking of ink films even on harsh crimping cycles. The company first participated in Labelexpo in 2022.

Flexibiz ERP | Stand: A27

Flexibiz ERP will display its ERP software solutions for flexo labels at Labelexpo 2024. It will run its software walkthroughs to demonstrate its role in helping plant efficiencies. The ERP solution manages plant processes, enables flows of information, provides prompt alerts for exceptions and provides machine overall equipment efficiency (OEE) traceability helping in plant audits. 

Its open linkages enable access to third-party software if required, along with IoT and machine integration and eSigning of invoices outside India.

Flexibiz ERP has multiple packaging units in one platform and multiple platforms with individual P&L, company-wise P&L and group-wise P&L. The company delivers its solutions in eight countries, addressing multiple packaging vertices. It has over a hundred clients, and its manufacturing site is in Noida. Flexbiz ERP first participated in Labelexpo in 2022.

MUST SEE: Flint Group | Stand: L5

Flint Group will present its latest innovations aimed at enhancing performance in the narrow-web sector. Among the key offerings is the EkoCure dual cure inks, which can cure under both traditional UV Hg and UV LED lamps. This development allows printers to use a single ink across various presses while transitioning to UV LED curing, minimising the need for extensive ink inventory.

Upal Roy, managing director for India, South Africa, and the Middle East, said, “Technologies like EkoCure provide converters with an asset. This range aids in managing ink inventory while investing in UV LED curing stations. They can transition at their own pace without added complexity. As a result, converters can benefit from lower energy use and waste associated with UV LED curing.”

For those involved in printing for food packaging, Flint Group will highlight Flexocure Ancora, a UV flexo ink that meets industry standards for indirect food contact. This product is intended for diverse applications, including self-adhesive and wrap-around labels.

MUST SEE: Fujifilm Sericol India | Stand: C8

Fujifilm Sericol India plans to introduce energy-efficient energy inks at Labelexpo 2024. It is a single LED cure flexo and offset ink system that performs equally well under LED curing or conventional UV arc curing. 

The LED ink technology is designed to cure under low-energy LED lamps which leads to no usage of mercury and less energy consumption. This enables printers to choose a more sustainable option. Fujifilm’s LED inks allow inks to be cured instantly at a high print speed with less time to produce output. 

Fujifilm’s LED inks are high gloss, with stability across a wide range of substrates used in the label and packaging industry and ensuring consistency. Fujifilm JDL Series delivers adhesion to film and paper substrates currently run and is even usable for shrink applications without adding chill rollers to press. The full ink line includes process colours, line colours, matching colours and even Fujifilm’s Supernova White and varnishes. 

LED curing uses light-emitting diodes to convert electrical current into light without producing equipment-damaging and health-compromising ozone emissions. The narrow spectrum of the UV-A light from LED curing eliminates the need for costly and noisy exhaust fans and produces virtually no heat while reducing odour.

MUST SEE: GEW | Stand: H16

The highlight for GEW at Labelexpo is its AeroLED2. The product is being launched in Asia for the first time, having previously been launched at Labelexpo America in September.  

“AeroLED2 is the next-generation, higher-powered, air-cooled UV LED curing system. It takes everything that made GEW’s first-generation AeroLED great but offers specification improvements that surpass other air-cooled systems on the market. It’s newly available for wider-web widths up to 70-cm, to cater for more presses in the narrow-web market. It is also compatible with GEW’s patented ArcLED technology, meaning it can be interchanged with GEW’s mercury arc curing systems to allow for easy flexibility on the press,” Marcus Greenbook, international sales director, GEW, said.

The product’s air-cooled cassette ensures faster printing and more power across all narrow-web machines leading to customers not having to worry about curing.

The LED2 also addresses the pressing issue that label converters have had to face recently: changing ink composition. The AeroLED2 ensures this is no longer a concern while simultaneously benefiting customers with narrow-web presses of 60 to 70 cm. It guarantees that they do not need a chiller, leading to overall cost-effectiveness. 

The company will also have on display its E2C and E4C as well as its new water-cooled LED system, LeoLED2. GEW has been participating in Labelexpo India since 2014.