Basic Flowchart

The folding carton crowd showed the least water-based favoritism. One hundred percent of respondents who print cartons flexo are using UV inks (67 percent also use water-based technologies). On the offset side, oil-based, UV, and soy-based formulations tied, each racking up 43 percent usage.

Water-based floated a bit further out of the picture when the perspective changed to end use. Solvent-based inks were the first choice for food/beverage (50 percent) and general retail cartons (50 percent), and tied with UV as the leading ink used for electronics/game cartons (50 percent each). Soy surfaced at the top for health/beauty (50 percent) and medical/pharmaceutical cartons (60 percent), and tied with UV as the most-used ink for wine/spirit cartons (50 percent each).