Making a Statement
Package printers share their picks and pans of specialty inks vital to on-the-shelf package differentiation.
By Susan Friedman
This time last year, packagePRINTING's ink survey revealed that more of its readers were using water-based inks than any other. At the same time, despite a slight usage decline, a solid number of converters planned to stay loyal to solvents. And excitement bubbled over UV quality and makeready benefits, particularly for narrow-web flexo.
pP's 1999 ink survey deviates from the mainstream of solvent, water, UV and soy to take a closer look at the specifics of the specialty inks market: preferences, prices, press issues and more.
Metallics mania
PP&C polled package printers and asked them to catalog their usage of specialty metallics, fluorescents, pearlescents, phosphorescents, thermochromics and hot foil stamping inks. Respondents from a mix of tag and label, flexible packaging and folding carton printing firms reported back that metallics were far and away the favorite specialty ink of 1998. Eighty-three percent of package printers who responded put them to work last year, most often to achieve that differential glitter on the shelf. Fluorescents scored second in usage with a 57 percent following.
Suppliers confirm metallic inks' popularity is primarily due to their retail appeal. "The driving factor is that more customers like the classy high-luster look of a gold or a silver," says Don Duncan, director of research, Wikoff Color Corp. "The package's message—the look and image of the package, not just the text—must be consistent with the customer's idea of what is most appropriate for the product. Sometimes a fluorescent orange is just right. But more often, a gold or silver is the desired look."
Thermochromics and hot foil stamping inks found a stronger North American market niche in 1998, and should move beyond simple "novelty" usage in the coming year, says Steve Abbott, president of Kromacorp U.S., who primarily provides inks to the wide-web industry. Kromacorp's Kroma-thermic heat-sensitive inks took off more immediately in Europe, appearing on beer, wine and candy bar labels to indicate optimum drinking or eating temperatures. Usage by larger, global beverage companies should spur ahead the spread of these inks to North America, he adds.
Ultrabright metallic inks designed as a replacement for hot stamping foils have already been adopted to replace bronze-based golds on gravure-printed tobacco and chocolate packages. Abbott expects that most additional usership will be gained from package redesigns. Hot foil stamping inks eliminate waste costs associated with foil, he says, and could allow a hot foil look to be added to packages that formerly couldn't afford it.
PP&C survey respondents employ specialty inks most often with flexo (60 percent), followed closely by offset (50 percent)—but they may be making things hard on themselves.
According to Duncan, these two print processes are the most problematic for specialty inks' higher film thickness needs. "Lithography and flexography tend to give the thinnest ink films," he explains, "which usually restricts them in printing thermochromic, photochromic and phosphorescent inks." Screen printing's thick-film effectiveness is a better choice for these formulations. And though many metallics and fluorescents are printed litho and flexo, Duncan contends that gravure is a better choice for achieving adequately thick films and allowing the large-particle pigment sizes needed for metallics to reflect enough light.
When it comes to challenges with specialty inks, frustrations with difficult on-press handling and higher costs received nearly equal billing, at 53 percent and 50 percent, respectively. "The cost limits specialty ink use to small quantities or a small ink coverage area," wrote one flexible packaging printer.
Duncan explains cost issues come mainly from expensive specialty pigments. "Higher volume consumption will bring prices down, but that growth is hampered by the current pigment cost."
But even if prices do drop, converters shouldn't expect much of a windfall, believes Bob Plant, marketing manager, Superior Printing Ink. This is because many specialty inks are maturer technologies that won't see the significant product advancements that generally predicate larger price breaks, he says.
Printers' feedback on specialty inks' performance included comments about fluorescent inks' tendency to fade, and instability between press runs.
Suppliers don't deny these inks' unpredictability. "Many of these pigments are quite delicate," Duncan says. "There is a limited group of carriers and binders that are compatible with each specialty pigment, and this limited selection of ingredients is not as optimized for press performance [as conventional inks]."
Plant sees the greatest challenge with specialty inks as using them in concert with finishing processes such as coating and laminating. Some pigments are totally incompatible with more aggressive coatings, he notes, but these "idiosyncrasies" should lessen as usage grows.
Mixed reviews for blending
pP's '99 ink survey also explored the dynamics of another avenue of specialty inks—blending to produce custom colors. Readers were asked to indicate the ink blending approach that worked best for them. Seventy-three of tag and label, flexible packaging and folding carton printers still turn to a vendor for blending needs, most often due to cost savings (55 percent).
Suppliers say savings can be procured from either blending approach, depending on a printer's customer mix. Commodity ink blending is best left to the vendor. "Low-cost inks are made in large quantities by ink vendors, and blending these items through an on-site cost system is still cost-prohibitive," comments David Setzer, product manager, corrugated inks, Borden Chemical. "The value of the bases dispensed on a blend system is much higher than the cost of low-tech ink purchased directly from the ink vendor."
Printers echoed this savings-on-either-side sentiment, also citing cost as the top motivator for 47 percent to bring blending in-house. "If a printer is focused on customers who require fast response to orders requiring special colors, an on-site blend system will save dollars in the form of freight, press down-time, overtime and waste," Setzer explains. Other cost-savings can stem from the ability to adjust colors on-press, and accommodate shorter runs with many custom colors, he points out.
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.
More computerized blending systems, such as Akzo Nobel's Think System, are furnishing printers with automatic reordering systems that track how much ink is used and order refills as needed. "The next step is automated dispensing, which is currently reserved for larger printers but is growing in popularity," Dedman notes, adding that a typical auto-dispensing system, which can start at $45,000, handles 16 base inks.
Greg Castillo, of customer engineering services at INX International, calls full line automated dispensers "the big ticket," with high-end systems topping $150,000. "Lower viscosity inks are easier to dispense, but high dispersion inks are the trend because of cost savings to the customer and ink supplier," he explains. "The customer can use high dispersion ink bases from the supplier to match colors of high color saturation with different viscosities."
Other automated dispensing system features sound as if they could render custom colors as easy to make as commodity inks. "Any color dispensed becomes a color standard and is stored in the dispensing software," Castillo states. New colors can be matched using existing data from previous color matches, he adds.
