Empack 2022: Rollenco presents digital printing machine for “anything but plastic”

07 Apr 2022 --- Rollenco is showcasing its digital printing machine developed to overprint on ready-made products at the Empack 2022 trade show in Gorinchem, Netherlands. 

René Laukens, DGA at Rollenco, tells PackagingInsights from the event floor: “Our digital printing machine can be used on a variety of products, including paper-bags, envelopes, boxes, wine boxes, serviettes and more.”

Laukens highlights Rollenco’s digital printing machine is “unique” because “Rollenco is the only company in the world which makes a machine dedicated to overprinting such a wide range of materials.”

Rising paper demand 
He explains that paper bag products are currently a “fast-growing” market in Europe, drive by European plastic bans.

“As a result, a lot of companies have a small series of paper-bags to be printed and that is exactly what our machines can do perfectly in a very efficient and fast way,” says Laukens.Laukens notes the digital printing machine can handle many different applications such as “wood, boards and all types of paper.”

“One of the big items is changing over time from one product to the other in less than one minute.” 

Laukens notes the printer can handle many different applications such as “wood, boards and all types of paper.”

However, he adds that it does not work well on plastics “because the image is too smooth and the ink will not be absorbed by the material.” 

“But for the other materials, anything that is flat and up to 9 cm (3.5 inches) high, can be printed.”

A pandemic lift
Laukens says in the beginning of the pandemic, it was challenging to sell the machines as customers and their engineers couldn’t travel due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

René Laukens, DGA at Rollenco.“We convinced our customers to buy our machines by connecting with them online.” He says this included Teams and Zoom meetings, a support set up by the company, and a shifting sales process from live to online talks. 

“This was actually very efficient and even though 2020 was difficult, 2021 was our best year ever,” he adds. 

In a similar development, Bobst has enhanced its All-in-One, All-Inline portfolio with the new Digital Master series, leveraging proven flexo experience and recent innovative inkjet developments.

Last year, Mondi launched an opaque paper for inserts of medications, leaflets, manuals and legal text applications called IQ Extralight. 

The opaque paper targets the uncoated premium segment, offering “excellent” printability and folding performance. It is optimized for web and sheet-fed offset printing and produced in Austria at Mondi’s Neusiedler paper mill.

By Natalie Schwertheim, reporting from Empack 2022, Netherlands