by Anthony Memme
The announcement of Koeing & Bauer Durst’s digital white ink is revolutionary for us and our markets, especially with it being a water based ink.
We do a lot of food, food contact, food ready packaging, such as pizza and produce boxes. Being able to put down a white and get high definition full color graphics on a kraft substrate is going to be transformative in our industry. Up until now I have not seen any print method print this quality and vibrancy of color on uncoated and kraft materials.
Now brands are taking an interest in digital production, we see that especially in the Canadian market, and the flexibility that it gives them. The ability to print with the Koeing & Bauer Durst white ink allows them to achieve really good quality on uncoated and kraft substrates.
It improves the sustainability of a product, the look of a product and the ability to react and pivot to market conditions. Sustainability is important to us as a company and our customers look to us to provide them with a sustainable product, with quality and speed to market as well.
We are a vertically integrated corrugated company servicing the northeastern part of North America and are proud to have installed the first Koening & Bauer Durst Delta SPC 130s using water-based inks in Canada. Our journey in single pass digital corrugated started in 2018. At the time, our customers were asking us where they needed a smaller run size, flexibility, high quality graphics and speed to market as well as being sustainably focused.
We were looking for a press that was durable and could run production speeds on corrugated. It was litho like with the highest quality that we could achieve. We also felt there were synergies between Atlantic and Koeing & Bauer Durst. We are both family owned. Important, too, was the professionalism that we were presented with throughout the organisation, through the process, especially at the initial phases of our partnership, when we were looking and evaluating the different options for digital.
Now we are now seeing business that we wouldn’t have seen based on product run sizes and the ability to produce high quality graphics directly onto corrugated board and especially on uncoated board. And with the introduction of white, there will be the expansion into kraft board as well.
Anthony Memme is the Digital Print Manager at Atlantic Packaging.
