London Packaging Week 2024 live: Fedrigoni highlights wet label glues and connectivity investments

12 Sep 2024 --- Fedrigoni Special Papers is showcasing its wet glue collection for beer and wine bottle labeling at the ongoing London Packaging Week, September 11–12.

On the trade show floor, Packaging Insights sits down with Ambra Fridegotto, marketing manager at Fedrigoni Special Papers UK, to discuss the company’s new wet glue technology, its latest R&D investments and partnerships for connective experiences. 

The Italy-based Fedrigoni Group consists of two divisions, Fedrigoni Special Papers and Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives, which supply premium flat sheet papers mostly used in packaging and self-adhesive products, respectively.

“Our wet glue collection is a massive development. The labels can be put in the fridge or in an ice bucket for 24 hours. There are 20 different products, and quite a few also have different material inclusions, for example, sugarcane or cotton,” explains Fridegotto.

“We also have a pulp-dyed black paper — for customers wanting a black label without having to print it, and you wouldn’t have the white edge.”

Fedrigoni is now also testing the wet glue application for the cosmetics and candle industries. 

Wet glue label technology 

Regarding wet glue application, Fridegotto explains that pressure sensitive labels have a face stock — which is the paper side — but also an adhesive added to the back and a plastic coating, to keep the paper sticky.

Applying wet glue labeling technology eliminates the need for plastic-based materials.“With wet glue, when you buy the pressure-sensitive label, you buy it with all those three elements. You buy the paper, you buy the adhesive and you buy the backing, and those all come as one product.”

“When you buy the wet glue paper, you buy just the paper stock, and then your converter or printer adds the glue in the process when they’re making it,” she notes.

Fridegotto adds that in that way, the plastic element is taken away as no backing is needed, having just the paper: “Then you choose what adhesive you want to use to be able to stick it onto whatever product you’re sticking on.”

Moving away from plastic?

Wet glue application is an alternative for customers seeking to reduce their plastic. “But of course, our other business segment uses plastic because that’s the only way to be able to keep the label sticky,” explains Fridegotto.

She says that the general plastic material reduction for labels and packaging must be made accurately and with sufficient knowledge. “There’s a lot of misinformation about what is sustainability and what materials are sustainable. Plus, plastic has its place.” 

“At Fedrigoni, one of our key pillars is finding paper alternatives to plastic. We have an innovation center in Verona [Italy], for example. The center is all about working with brands and collaborating to find new, innovative solutions.”

Fridegotto addresses new legislation, which is yet to be implemented, regarding the integration of pre- and post-consumer waste into packaging: “The legislation says that there shouldn’t be a differentiation, essentially, and it will all be the same, which I think is very important because sometimes brands prefer post-consumer waste, but they don’t necessarily take into account the fact that that paper needs to be recycled.”Fedrigoni is also showcasing its latest carton box designs. 

“[Paper] needs to then be bleached and removed of staples, for example. So there’s a lot more behind recycled paper than just a recycled tag.”

Connectivity investments

Fedrigoni offers over 3,000 products to its customers. “We’ve also been acquiring quite a few different companies in the last few years, and that enables us to expand what we can offer our customers, not just in terms of papers and self-adhesives,” she says.

“We recently became shareholders of [connected technology company] Sharp End. We’re hoping we will be able to combine many different papers with RFID-connected experiences, enabling us to offer our customers a full-service provider and giving people a choice to find beautiful papers for their packaging.”

Regarding the business segment’s upcoming developments, Fridegotto says that the extension of the partnership with Sharp End will be at the forefront of “understanding how we can connect paper RFID and connected experiences.”

“For example, if a company has a bottle of whiskey, they can add a connected experience. And maybe it can bring them to social media channels like YouTube for different recipes or show the journey of how the whiskey was made. It could be amazing,” says Fedrigoni.

By Natalie Schwertheim, with live reporting from Louis Gore-Langton at London Packaging Week 2024