COLOR DIGITAL PRINTING:
AN OPPORTUNITY
FOR CARTON
CONVERTERS?
Shorter print runs are driving this
limited but developing segment.
BY BOB LEAHEY | CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
For most folding carton converters, color digital printing is obscure technology, too limited in terms of productivity to be relevant. That said, color digital printing of folding cartons is a
developing segment, spurred by brand owners needing
shorter print runs and digital printer manufacturers’
focus on expanding into the packaging market. Here’s a
capsule view of this young market and its outlook.
Color digital printing of packaging in general is a big
market already – worth about $2 billion globally in 2010 –
but it is more than 95 percent based on color label printing,
the natural home of narrow print webs, both conventional
and digital. On the digital side, there are more than a thou-
sand color digital presses in the world today from vendors
such as HP Indigo and Xeikon that print runs of labels
for primary packaging. These runs range from less than a
thousand labels to 50,000 or more. The presses, which are
normally roll fed, can match from 60 percent to 90 per-
cent of PMS colors, depending on the number of color sta-
tions inside them (CMYK is the minimum), and they print
at speeds from 50 to 150 feet per minute. Most often they
are placed side by side with much faster narrow web flexo
presses, and they improve converters’ workflow and costs
by taking short print runs away from the flexo presses, let-
ting the flexo presses instead concentrate on the long print
runs where they are most efficient.
