How to address the needs of regulation in digital ink. Lee Metters Strategic Product Director Domino Printing Sciences

Transcription

1 How to address the needs of regulation in digital ink Lee Metters Strategic Product Director Domino Printing Sciences

2 About Us Coding and Marking Founded in 1978 HQ in Bar Hill, Cambridge, England 2300 employees worldwide Listed in LSE FTSE 250 share index Sales in 2012 of 312.1m FTSE 250 member Underlying pre-tax profits of 53.7m (17% ROS) Industrial Traceability Digital Printing

3 Why is safety important to us The majority of our business is onto FMCG packaging Safety is a priority for us and our customers We aim to lead on regulatory issues

4 Why Digital Printing? Everything That Can Become Digital, Will Become Digital Benny Landa, Founder HP Indigo. Source : Tarsus

5 Digital Printing Industry Lifecycle Colour Inkjet Corrugate Introductory Stage Colour Inkjet Textiles Colour Inkjet Industrial Printing Single Pass Books Why is this happening? Growth Stage Colour inkjet Labels Scanning Colour inkjet Textiles Colour inkjet Packaging - e.g folded carton Scanning Wide Format Colour inkjet Signage Time Inkjet Transactional Maturity Stage Single pass Colour inkjet Ceramics Technology capability and cost now making it affordable Toner based Transactional Toner based Labels Decline Stage Total Market Sales Drive for smaller batches and more personalisation creating a demand Manufactures driving implementation to gain competitive advantages

6 The growth of digital printing Inkjet or toner are the main processes Onto a web, a label or a box Oil, solvent or UV are the most common ink technologies EP digital printing is expensive but is still growing rapidly Inkjet has reached the quality and speed tipping point and is lower cost Many customers want to improve the pedigree of their products, prove they are authentic Digital printing can aid this through enabling improved information

7 What different about non impact printing Today even with conventional printing there is no such a thing as guaranteed low migration ink for packaging. You need to ensure that the process and substrate combine to match migration limits The ink, the package and the contents of the pack are all contributors to migration levels, there is no universal solution Inkjet is more challenging as the ink must be low viscosity This means that the Pigments, monomers, binders, additives all tend to be lower molecular weight and need more dispersant And you usually need more initiators The challenge of making no migration, low offset inks is even greater Its still a work in progress

8 What is our approach? For coding we do worst case calculations based on the mass of ink deposited and considering any migrateable components and work within the EUPIA guidelines Work with our customers regulatory teams to assure compatibility with their regulatory needs Eliminate any hazardous materials, for example mineral oil free inks For UV label printing our approach is to recommend that a functional barrier is present and to ensure customers are aware of and manage the risks The majority of the digital printing industry is coming into packaging from a very different perspective They are not always aware of the issues and challenges faced by ink makers, printers and brand owners

9 And the future We are working on technologies that will solve this problem We have a number of university research programs underway Our long term aim is to get the point of producing food grade inks for as many applications as we can But there are many barriers to be overcome to reach this goal.

10 Summary Digital printing is growing very quickly It provides opportunities:- To improve food safety through improved control of the supply chain To make the information provided more up to date However the technology is less mature than traditional printing and technical challenges remain in making it completely food safe Until this is possible we work closely with our customers regulatory teams to ensure safe, compliant applications We have a number of programs underway that are aimed at reducing risks through safer chemistry, but these will take some time to complete

11 Questions?