Flint Group, Bobst, Esko and partners present new project at Sino-Corrugated 2015
In recent years, the Chinese flexo printing market steadily increased with significant progress in quality. However, there is still room for improvement and a long way to go, especially in the packaging area. Another aspect is the higher attention to environmental protection, which will stimulate the development of flexo printing in China. Corrugated, which has a considerable portion of this segment, also shows strong growth.
To date, printing on corrugated boxes was quite simple just to meet the needs of a transportation container. To push the development of corrugated post printing in China, Bobst started together with Flint Group, Esko and other partners the initiative "Flexo goes Green", which stands for sustainability, productivity and quality. This project was presented during the Sino-Corrugated 2013 fair in Shanghai, gaining a lot of attention. Meanwhile, there is a trend to more sophisticated packaging, and the new role of corrugated can be described as "from the brown box to branding". By this means, packaging is becoming part of marketing and sales activities to more and more attract the consumer's attention.
To further develop this important market segment, the partners decided to proceed with the "Flexo goes Green" initiative and to present two new corrugated boxes at the Sino-Corrugated 2015 fair. The boxes have been printed in a joint cooperation of the project partners with Flint Group's environmental friendly water-based ink, FLEXOPAK C, and photopolymer printing plate, nyloflex® ART 284 Digital. This plate is ideally suited for printing on all kinds of fibre surfaces, e.g. high quality post print on corrugated board with very good reproduction of highlight dots and excellent and consistent ink transfer. The job with screen ruling of 133lpi ran on a Bobst 160 Vision VI press, with die-cutting on a Bobst SPO 160 Vision. In this specific segment of premium post printing with a thin flexo plate (thickness 2.84 mm), Bobst is in a leading position in China. The artwork was delivered by the local tradeshop, Kunshan Fuhua, with an Esko system.
"With this new project, the cooperation partners demonstrated the clear progress of corrugated post print, which could be achieved during the last two years," says QiHong-Magenta Zheng, General Manager Flint Group Flexographic Products China. "We are proud to be a part and a driving force of this process."
All the partners commit to the initiative "Flexo goes Green" and will continue stimulating flexo printing in China to a higher level of sustainability, productivity and quality so that further breakthroughs can be expected.
