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materials to have a backing carrier and be cut to shape on the
press. It was die-cutting materials on a liner that now enabled
sticky labels to be produced on a roll. It was not long before
press manufacturers such as Gallus, Nilpeter, and Mark Andy
were producing the early dedicated roll-label letterpress and
flexo presses.
late
20
th
century
:
emergence
of
self
-
adhesive
in
europe
Later came narrow-web screen, hot-foil and combination
process presses, UV-curing inks and more advanced plate-
making technology. By the late 1970s self-adhesive labels had
already attained a 7% share of the European label market – with
all printing processes being used. Today, self-adhesive labels
make up around 40% of label usage, fuelled by a whole host of
technology and press innovations over the last thirty years that
have enabled labels to be printed faster, on wider webs, using
rotary and wrap-around tooling, servo-drive presses, and press
controls that include web inspection, register control, colour
management, and much more.
Unbelievably, it was not until 1978 that the first retail bar codes
were being produced for the Fine Fare Supermarket’s own
label products, and the very first time that a velocity code was
incorporated on the filmmasters for the production of the
dark vertical bars on the codes. Today, bar codes are an
essential element of every label sold through retail outlets
across Europe.
At this time bar coded labels for labelling fresh produce in
store and at pre-packers was being undertaken with heat-
sensitive label stocks. It was not until the 1980s that thermal
direct and then thermal transfer printing of bar coded
price-weigh labels using self-adhesive materials began to take
place and grow rapidly by the later part of the decade.
At about the same time the use of new types of polypropylene
and polystyrene (later polyethylene) filmmaterials for more
demanding label applications were being introduced. High
quality printing of filmic materials used for labelling shampoos,
toiletries, industrial products, etc, were now required by the
leading brand owners. This presented more demanding label
printing and converting challenges for press manufacturers and
converters.
3
decades
of
evolutionary
changes
in
label
printing
technology
To meet changing label printing requirements over the past 30
years the dominant label printing technology of the time has
undergone several changes: in the 1980s it was rotary letterpress
that dominated new press sales. Then came growth in the flexo
process during the 1990s. Much of the early part of the 21st
century has seen UV flexo as the dominant technology for new
label press sales. Since the mid-2000s, digital printing has also
begun to evolve quite rapidly, initially with electrophotographic
liquid and dry toner technologies and, most recently, with new
generations of UV and water-based inkjet.
In the pipeline for launch in 2014 is the newly developed Landa
nanographic printing process, an offset inkjet process that has
already created significant market interest amongst label,
folding carton and flexible packaging printers.
Without unduly wishing to worry the label converter, there is
also considerable development work being undertaken at the
present time with the longer-term aim of eventually using
inkjet technology to print direct onto glass or plastic bottles or
onto a variety of can shapes and sizes. Maybe not a concern for
today, but possibly a more real threat for the future.
Fine Fare Labels 1978 edited
Rotatek
59
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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