Making a Statement

In-house blending can also trim printers' ink costs, because ink suppliers can manufacture base color for a lot less than custom colors, says Ed Dedman, director of technical support, Akzo Nobel Inks.

Package printers who do their own blending are typically using technology that has been around for some time, from the simplest scale and formula set-ups to computerized scale systems that automatically calculate formulas, track batches and print out MSDS information and container labels.