The Mercian Labels Group Blog – Security Labels International, Mercian Labels and AC Labels

Harveer Sahni, MD of the Indian Labelling company Weldon Celloplast has launched his new blog. Its in its early days, but I hope that the blogosphere will be enhanced by this
labelling superpower from the Indian sub continent – good luck Harveer!

The Mercian Labels' Sales team - (Left to right - Judy, Charlie, Andy, Marina, Richard, Elaine)

Sometimes its good to put a name to a face – so here are our amazing sales team at Mercian Labels!

From left to right we have Judy (Sales Coordinator), Charlie [Charlotte] (Key Account Manager), Andy (Sales Coordinator), Marina (Export Sales Coordinator), Richard (Sales Assistant) and Elaine (Sales Manager).

Suggestions welcome in the comments box of who you think is the office “character”…

the "security label" in place

We recently bought a Three MIFI unit for remote web access, which came packaged above with a so called “tamper evident” label saying “I’m secure. Check contents if seal broken or VOID displayed”. Ummm.

the seal removed intact

well it took seconds using a simple technique to remove.

and reapplied again

and here is is reapplied.  You’d have to have a very careful eye to see any change.  In fact I rushed this a bit and could have done a better job  if I’d have had my “tools” in the office at the time.

a Label Lock applied

Contrast this product with our stock Label Lock product – OK, its a bit big for this application, but we do customise them on request.

a Label Lock removed leaving a permanent change on the box AND the label

And a Label Lock removed, using the same technique which removed the white “security ” label above.  Notice any difference?  I think I know which one does the job it is supposed to, and which one does not.  If you need to secure a box from pilfering, then we recommend you use a product upto the job – not one that is just “all talk”.

GRAB MY BALLS

This label is destined for a well known high street food outlet and was spotted on the back of the ID badge of a well known sales professional at the factory last week…  we do sometimes get asked to manufacture some unusual designs!

I was interested to hear of the launch  of Labelgrid recently.  This is a new open source project (GPL licence) to design a web based label printing software stack to design and print labels in a browser rather than the typical client based software.  There  will be a number of challenges in this as the authors point out on their webpage, but I thin its a really interesting idea if they get it to work well, and I wish them all the best in the code development .  You can see a demo here.

getting ready for the off!

Cpt Ed Pawsey of the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment recently contacted us in their bid to raise money for Help for Heroes , the charity that helps to support wounded UK service men and women.  Ed and his colleagues are doing the Help for Heroes European Rally and have had some good local publicity.  This is what they say on their website

Team Green Howard has secured a place on the Help for Heroes European Rally 2010.  This rally as you may have read consists of a monster 1650 mile drive starting on Salisbury Plain crossing Normandy and ending at Hitler’s ‘Eagles Nest’ in Berchtesgaden, Austria whilst traversing 6 countries.  This rally follows the route of the well known TV series ‘Band of Brothers’ and is part road/off road competition whilst visiting specific historical locations.  All in order to raise funds for the Help for Heroes charity.

The Team consists of Ed Pawsey, Will Pawsey and James Kelly.  Both Ed and James are Captains in the Army.  Ed’s in the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment (the Green Howards).  James is a Captain in the Royal Engineers and is a Bomb Disposal Officer.  Will is a student studying Criminology at Nottingham University and is set to join the Poice Force.  All three of us have close links to friends who have been injured or killed in Afghanistan and make this trip and raise funds in memory of them. Help for Heroes is at the front of our mind for obvious reasons and without this charity and your generous donations our many injured service men and women would not have the lengthy process of rehabilitation your fundraising has begun to provide.  Without this rehabilitation it would be near impossible to give these Heroes the ability to rebuild their lives and face a positive future.

Please give what you can as every little helps.  ALL money raised goes to the charity and not funding the event or team.  It may take 5 minutes to register but 5 minutes now is a future better for all.

Ed is asking for any donations on his Just Giving website, so please contribute anything you can to this very worth cause.

the cover of the new publication

A new magazine landed on my desk yesterday, “Digital Labels and Packaging Magazine“.  I scanned it this morning and fund it to be a reasonable summary of the state of the digital labelling machinery marketplace, with big adverts and plugs from all the major players apart from Epson.  I’d recommend this as a one off read, but as so little happens in this arena outside of the big shows, I’m struggling to see what fresh content is going to arrive with each new edition every quarter.  Time will tell I guess!

2 self adhesive coating lines, running water based and hotmelt coating heads

On the way back from holiday I took the opportunity of visting one of the European label material suppliers in Spain, and was allowed to take a few pictures of their very impressive new operation.  Established on this site about 3 years ago, Manter run a very slick operation with 2 coating lines, pictured above.  Each line has 2 reel of paper as inputted raw materials, together with a supply of liquid adhesive and liquid silicone, all of which are combined at speeds of hundreds of meter per minute to make a self adhesive label construction.

If you dont know much about the labelling industry, all suppliers (inlcuding us at the Mercian Labels group) buy material from suppliers like Manter who throw out enormous volumes of self adhesive coated papers and synthetics, which we then print on and covert to produce individual labels.  Pretty much every label you ever see started life on machines like these!

the automated picking line for loading raw materials into the lines

Manter have invested in very impressive automation to make their operation more efficient and this robotic picking facility to load up the lines really is cutting edge stuff.

Many slitting lines are used to slit the coated material into smaller reels that we label printers use as our raw material

They have many slitting lines to convert the finished material (often 1.5m wide by many KMs long) into smaller reels that label printers like us can use.

Overall, it was a short but very informative visit, and I came away very impressed with their facility and approach to business.

I’ve been away on holiday recently and so this short review of IPEX from a labelling perspective is a little late, and therefore short.  IPEX isnt really a big labelling show, but there were some points of interest for us. Briefly:

• Inkjet still marches on some new offerings from Domino and Konica Minolta, but the quality of all the 4 colour inkjet units I saw was still not very good, and no where near as good as the Xeikon or HP or even flexo.  More work still needed, 600 dpi isnt going to cut it IMHO.
• The Xeikon 3500 was worth looking at, but curiously didnt have a conversion solution configured for labelling, it is more of a mid web packaging press, especially as the toner prices for white are significantly lower than currently offered to users such as us at Mercian Labels.
• The new Epson label printer was on show, even though its not for sale yet I understand.  I first saw a flyer for this machine in 2001, and even after all these years its just completely missed the point for me.  It runs at about 3 m/min verses the Xeikon and HP 20+ m/min ish, and even faster for continuous inkjet (albeit it with generally poor quality).  The quality is excellent though, but I still cannt see a market for the machine at all.  Shame, if it was half the price and 5 times the speed it may be viable, but in its current form I really dont think they will sell many at all.
• There was nothing new from HP in labelling that I could tell (without getting caught up in the hard core HP sales process!)

Overall, if you didnt go, I dont think you missed much, and Label Expo Europe remains the major show.  If you want a fuller labelling review of IPEX, check this out.

Barry Deri

It was announced recently that Barry Deri has rejoined Flint Inks as their technical manager, after being made redundant during the recession.  We, like many customers who have come to value Barry’s technical input very highly and were very dismayed at the very short term decision of Flint Narrow web inks to terminate this invaluable resource, a decision they finally recognised as a poor one and subsequently rehired him.  I blogged about this some time ago and have not changed my opinion since.  The economy is cyclical and we need to keep the remaining high level skills we have in UK manufacturing – they are not easily replaced and Flint has been lucky to be rehire Barry.

A number of BSRLA members are visiting IPEX on Tuesday 18th May and meeting for some drinks and a  bite to eat in the evening in Birmingham city centre near New Street station.  If you wish to come along and join us, please email me and I’ll send you meeting directions.

GAMMATEX gamma sterilisation indicator-labels

PRESS RELEASE

27 April 2010

Derby, UK

DETEX manufacturer moves forward following collapse of their largest customer

AC Labels, who have previously manufactured DETEX labels for the verification of gamma radiation sterilisation, have announced the launch of the GAMMATEX™ brand following the collapse of their largest customer for that range, Sessions of York.

Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director of AC Labels said ‘It was with great sadness that we have witnessed the Administration of Sessions of York last week who supplied many satisfied customers with DETEX labels over the years. DETEX labels were commonly used in the medical and pharmaceuticals industries as verification that products had been subjected to the necessary dosage of radiation to ensure full sterilisation. Without Sessions of York to act as a route to market for us, we have been approached by their previous customers with requests to manufacture a radiation sensitive product directly. This we will happily do under the name of GAMMATEX™, with a price guarantee that will be a pleasant surprise to former customers. We already have new products in the pipeline, and will be working with current users to bring new innovations in gamma sterilisation indicating labels to the marketplace.”

A C Labels is a subsdiary of the Mercian Labels Group of Staffordshire, UK which has a portfolio of specialist labelling products including LabelLock ®™ security seals and Microembossed Labels™.

– – NOTES FOR EDITORS – – -

AC Labels in Derby are recruiting for a General Manager

Following the request acquisition of AC Labels in Derby by the Mercian Labels Group on 31 March 2010, we have created a new role for a General Manager of the AC Labels operation in Derby. This new role is an exciting opportunity for a talented manager with business development skills to take day to day control of a small (10 person) niche manufacturing business who are market leaders in high volume barcode labelling with a well established customer base. This is a full-time, salaried management position that reports to the Board of the holding company, the Mercian Labels Group. You will ideally (but not necessarily) have a print background and will have the energy, self motivation and enthusiasm to take “ownership” of a new operation and guide it to long term commercial success through a “hands on” management approach. Senior level support and coaching into the role will be provided by the Directors who are very keen to secure the right individual for this exciting opportunity. Salary is negotiable and the position is available for an immediate start.

Full details are on our website with informal discussions to the Managing Director Dr Adrian Steele (adrian.steele@mercianlabels.com) on 01543 431 072

NO AGENCIES – see webpage for details.

The first job coming off the press at the new AC Labels operation in Derby

I love it when a plan comes together! (No, this is not a message from Hannibal of the A-Team!)

Pictured above are the new Top Team at AC Labels in Derby, a new subsidiary of the Mercian Labels Group with the first high quality variable barcode labels from a new factory, setup and running to produce high quality stock in just 13 days from the deal being closed. From left to right are Karen, Marge, Lee, Jason, David, Marcin, Adrian, Adam, Tim and Thomasz.

It has been a colossal effort from everybody involved, and to have the operation up and running this quickly is just fantastic, and I know has been greatly appreciated by our clients.  More business is already secured, so please keep it coming!

AC Labels specialise in medium to long run variable barcode labels and variable number labels, and are market leaders in this labelling niche with pricing that beats any thermal, xeikon or HP printed variable barcode label pricing “hand down”.  The added twist is that AC Labels can do 100% barcode verification on every label printed, delivering unparalleled quality standards (even Mercian Labels cannt do that!).

100% verified variable barcode labels off to an offshore blue chip client

And away it goes!

Well done to everybody involved in the new team, and as MD , I send my thanks and congratulations to you all!

Xeikon 3500

Well the news is out - the new Xeikon press is called the 3500 (not the 3600 I guessed!) and “width” is the new development as suggested by my informant.

“The Xeikon 3500 can run web widths of 200 to 512mm wide at speeds of up to 19.2m/min, regardless of the number of colours used.”

This takes the new press just above the productivity of the serious competition, the heavyweight WS 6000. Taking the headline capacities, at 4 colours, the WS6000 can run 317mm at 30 m/min which is 9.5 m2/minute, and the Xeikon 35000 can run 512mm x 19.2 m/minute which is 9.8 m2/minute.  Thats about a 3% improvement over the WS6000, which is nothing but a headline grabber.  However, Xeikon can now claim to offer to either match or beat both the quality and productivity of any digital labelling press.

I look forward to seeing it at IPEX.

Visit IPEX to hear more, and hopefully see one in action.

PRESS RELEASE

2 April 2010

Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

A C Labels bought by the Mercian Labels Group

Barcode labelling specialists A C Labels have been acquired by the Mercian Labels Group in an assets and goodwill deal, securing the long term supply of variable data barcode labels and the highly regarded A C Labels brand.

“A C Labels has a fantastic reputation in the marketplace as a market leader in complex variable information labelling.” said Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director of Mercian Labels, adding “We are establishing a new operation in Derby specifically to serve this demand, and are delighted with both the support shown from the client base for the acquisition, and also the opportunity to acquire the brand of A C Labels. This new subsidiary of the Mercian Labels Group complements our other speciality companies in manufacturing tamper evident security labels, Label Lock security seals and short run digital, hotfoil and flexographic labelling.”

The new company will continue to manufacture complex constructions of self adhesive labels inlcuding variable data and barcodes, serving the medical, pharma and logistics marketplaces, and is now involved in ensuring a seamless transition for existing customers of AC Labels and to secure and expand the prospects of the business in Derby.

– – NOTES FOR EDITORS – - -

A well placed source yesterday whispered in my ear that Xeikon are going to launch something special at IPEX next month.  IPEX, second only to DRUPA on the world stage for print innovation launches (both with an offset 4 year cycle) is being held down the road from us in Birmingham, UK.

The new YouTube video (above) is a humorous take on a recent press event, but makes the point well – something new is about to come out of Belgium.

I cannt find out what this is (yet), but as well as the new toners, look out for something new and exciting from Xeikon at IPEX.  My vote?  Speed. lots of it.   Lets call it the Xeikon 3600 and think 40 m/min.

If you wish to speculate, then join in the fun by adding a comment to this post.

Watch this space.

The team at Edale involved in the new press - Peter, Louise, Adrian and Jeremy

A first for this labelling blog, a review and pictures of a new press!  Yesterday I was invited to Edale Ltd, one of the few UK press manufacturers left to see the new Edale Alpha Multi, an 8 colour flexo press with a very small footprint.  At Mercian Labels we run a new standard 4 colour Edale Alpha we bought in 2008, but the additional 4 print stations in this configuration is a new concept that has not been seen before, and showcases the engineering ingenuity that Edale has developed a reputation for.

The new Edale Alpha Multi - the long running standard Edale Alpha press in on the right, with the retrofit bolt on 4 colour 'multi' upgrade on the left. the web moves under the yellow footplate between the units

So this is the new press – a very different concept for meet a particular market – those label printers needing a high end specification press with the smallest footprint possible at a good value price thats much less than a comparable modular press.  Here you have an 8 colour press with a length of 4.5m, compared to a normal modular press with 8 colours thats about 8-9m long – a big space saving.  The amount of ‘metal’ is also significantly reduced, thus reducing the price.  Its an easy retrofit onto any existing Alpha press, or obviously you can buy a compete stack as it is.

the mechanical drive for the multi is shielded by the orange bar - which also makes a handy seat....

The version I saw was the very first unit, that had literally just come off the production line some days ago and was only powered up last week, so had a few minor modifications to be addressed, as is common with all development projects, but there were minor and trivial to fix. I also pointed out a couple of possible modifications to consider to improve the design, and as always they were very receptive to ideas.

You can continue to use 1 stack of 4 colours and bypass the other using a clever splicing system to easily change back and forth.  The print runs the left ‘multi’ stack first, then the main stack, then lamination and converting as appropriate.  It would seem sensible to set up the left ‘multi’ stack with CMYK UV permanently, and add water based spot colours on the main unit as needed, maybe with a UV varnish.  9 colours is the maximum I believe.

The registration wasnt bad either, quoted at +/- 0.15mm at 60m/min although due to the minor modification needed I couldnt see this in action at the time, but the registration at slower speed (40m/min) was good.

close up shot of the 8 colour demo label design with cross hairs of 0.15mm

This was the shot I took at the end of the demo of a the printed web – its not bad at all, but Edale assured me that it will be crack on perfect after the final press modifications are made, and from previous experience of dealing with them, I believe that to be likely.

Overall, this is a great piece of design, and should be an easy upgrade for those like us at Mercian with an existing 4/5 colour alpha.  In fact, its so innovative that it should really be nominated for an award somewhere, showing what the best of British engineering talent can design.

Yes you can buy cheaper 8 colour presses from developing countries, but as always you do get what you pay for, and this configuration is much,much cheaper than a new 8 colour modular press.

This one is destined for Kingfisher Labels as reported in the trade press here and here and I’m sure they will be pleased with their purchase.

Disclosure:- my company is a previous (satisfied) client of Edale Ltd, but we have no current involvement with them and I was not influenced or rewarded in any way (apart from some butties and a packet of crisps) for this piece.

Copyright: - these pictures and text are copyright of Mercian Labels – please feel free to link to this piece but please dont copy and use it without our permission

Ok, we give in. You can now follow our posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MercianLabels .

We have completed a trial of linerless labels - is this the future?

One of the really enjoyable parts of running a business with an innovation culture is that we are always experimenting with new products, and here is a preview of the our linerless self wound label stock.  Please forgive the fact that the image is back to front -  it was a proof of concept trial!

The reason why this could be very interesting is that there is no siliconised liner waste, which is a lot more environmentally friendly than normal label stock.  See our previous blogs on this subject .

the finished label reel, without perforations

There are obvious limitations to this concept, notably that you must perforate between labels leaving a ragged edge, and generally you must have a flat bottom to the labels, or be prepared to deal with the waste between labels as you remove them.

we can also make 4 colour process tamper evident linerless labels in the same way

Interestingly, we also found it easy to make a tamper evident CMKY process “thin film” tamper evident security label construction as well.

I’d be interested in any views of this concept.  No doubt its been done elsewhere before somewhere, but its interesting to try these things for ourselves and see what the reaction is.

helmet sticker test.

Thanks to an inquiry from Australia yesterday from an earlier blog post, I thought I’d clarify the position in respect of the safest adhesive to use for hard hat and helmet labels.  The history here is that in the 1979’s there were stories of motorcycle accidents where helmets were providing insufficient protection to the wearer’s head in a crash as the adhesive had significantly damaged the helmet surface and weakened it.  You can read an interesting page on the subject here.

I tried to get a definitive answer to this question in 2007 from the EU technical manager for Fasson about the hard hat and helmet  label adhesive we commonly specify for this application , and got this reply.  “The history is that many years ago, during the 1970’s, polycarbonate crash helmets were introduced for motorcycle riders, and some time after this there we some issues with stickers coated with solvent based adhesives causing a weakening of the polycarbonate, reducing the effectiveness of the helmet. SInce this came to light we have stipulated the use of solvent-free, waterbased acrylic adhesives such as our S692N for this type of application. Although waterbased, S692N has excellent water resistance and good resistance to UV light making it ideal for outdoor exposure. “.  Further consultation with an adhesive consultant suggested that any solvent based adhesive is a definite “no no”, normal hotmelts are undesirable, but any water based acrylic adhesive (used as standard on the vast majority of labelling material) is probably suitable, as are UV cured hotmelt adhesives (rare).   If you want further advice, then please contact us.

As one of the UK’s top label printers, with over 40 years of trading behind us, we are looking for an experienced office based Sales Manager. You will be a charismatic leader, with excellent mentoring skills and a very good IT and customer services background. You will be dealing by email and telephone with a large number of companies, big and small, across the UK and beyond, in order to close sales. At the same time you will be providing inspiration and motivation to a small but committed team of internal sales coordinators, and crucial  feedback to the wider business. You will be given training, and as much decision making responsibility as you can handle comfortably. For more information on our culture and values, please see our corporate website at http://www.mercianlabels.com/careers.php which also describes how to apply.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

2D QR Barcode Label used for an intereactive marketing campaign by Pepsi

Whilst out at a trade show today I bought a soft drink with this new marketing campaign on the label.  I dont know if it was printed flexo or digitally, but it was unique enough to get me to use the 2D QR barcode reader on my Nokia e90 mobile phone, which redirected me to a unique website (only viewable on a WAP browser) for this specific marketing campaign.

This sort of application is ideal for digital label printing, and I can see that it wont be long before forward thinking brand owners start approaching us for this sort of campaign with static or variable data.

the sarcmark is a great way to punctuate sarcastic sentances so you protect yourself from misinterpretation

The new sarcmark is the first novel piece of punctuation that I have seen for a long time, and solves a real problem in electronically written english communication, this being trying to use sarcasm without running the risk of offending the recipient who may miss your subtlety.  I like it, and will try to use it, even though its got 3 problems as a concept:

1) its going to take some time to become widely known amongst the population to achieve its purpose.

2) its only being promoted as a “font”for windows and crackberrys.  Not Mac and not Ubuntu or any form of linux as far as I can see from their site.  Thats very clever and forward thinking. It also means that you cannt use it as a font unless everybody has it, typified by the fact that on the advertising websitre the originators cannt use their own product as unless you have the font you cannt see it, so they use a PNG image file of a sarcmark ()  instead.  Thats a rare thing – a vendor who cannt use their own product as nobody else can read it unless you’ve already bought it – catch 22.

3) the originators are trying to patent it and charge $1.99 to download and use it, no doubt with some form of license.  Some on guys, how do you propose to patent a piece of the english language?

Its a great idea, but just cut the commercialism out, open source it, and its use should just explode.

In the meantime, users could use the PNG version of the sarcmark () in html emails and webpages.

box sealing tape marked as "tamper proof"...

Yesterday I received a consignment of low energy GU10  LED light bulbs for home from a supplier sealed with what was labelled as “tamper proof” tape by Haddad Brands.

Oh no it isnt.

removed and reapplied, and you'd never know

I removed it intact in about a minute, and reapplied it the other way around.

Label Lock applied

I then applied a Label Lock security seal  on it

Label Lock removed

and removed it using the same technique I used to defeat the allegedly tamper evident tape.  The result is pretty obvious and the lesson clear.  Dont try and seal your packages and fool people by marking tape as tamper proof when its just not!

I bought a new printer cartridge yesterday and it was delivered with a really neat security label on it that looks great, has some good features, but IMHO entirely misses the point.  As you can see from the photo below, it is a branded security label from Samsung that is applied to seal the box closure by the red tab with security cuts as its only tamper evidence mechanism.

Here is a close up of the label in place sealing the box over the blue printed area (see the carton cut being sealed to the right), showing its 2D QR barcode and the colourshift ink (red and yellow overprint)

and the colourshift looked at from a different angle in blue and purple

the problem is that the tamper has a very low level of tamper evident security, and can be removed with ease (but I’m not telling how!).  Here is a picture of the removed label, reapplied a few cms away on the box… not much a seal then.

I then applied one of our dual layer Label Lock security labels (uncustomised version off the shelf) to the place where the Samsung label was. Ok, its a bit big, but makes the point.

I then attacked it in the same way that I removed the Samsung label and it still indicated the tamper as it should do, leaving a big dry peel OPENED message on the box and in the removed label.

and this is the carton opening that the label was supposed to protect.

The lesson here is that you really have to work out in advance what your “security label” is for – is it to prevent counterfeiting (brand protection), and/or prevent tampering of a closure.  This security label is a good brand protection label that is hard to counterfeit that is used to prevent tampering, but dosnt work as a security seal.

We offer selected brands the opportunity to use our latest Label Lock security label technology to secure their product closures with bespoke security labels inclusing colourshift inks, tactile features etc, as well as deter counterfeiting.  Please contact us if you dont want to fall into the same trap!

What treats does 2010 hold ?

Last year I made a bunch of predictions for 2009 – some of which have come true, and others not.  I think I got 1,2,4, and 10 right. 8 is coming with the Google Nexus One phone running Android. The others I got wrong, or show no signs of happening. Hey Ho.

So, here are my 10 predictions for 2010:

1. Sterling will fall below the value of the euro before June 2010 and the FTSE 100 will rise from 5400 to 6000 during 2010
2. The Conservatives will win the 2010 UK general election and instigate big cuts in the public sector
3. Inflation will return in 2010, with the RPI reaching above 4% by December
4. There will be a pile of administrations and pre packs of UK retail business in January and February, and by the autumn of 2010 the banks (assisted by HMRC) will be closing down lots of businesses and crystallising a bunch of loss making liabilities before their year end
5. There will be lots of consolidation in the UK label printing market, with many companies ceasing trading on the back of tighter credit control from the material suppliers linked to 20% material price rises from the devaluing of sterling.
6. The volume of labelling material converted by the UK labelling industry will continue to fall during 2010 as alternative packaging technologies such as shrink sleeves take over in the high volume food and logistic labelling markets.
7. 2D QR barcodes on digital labels will become a standard tool for B2C marketing as smartphone cameras connect to webpages
8. The must have gadgets for xmas 2010 will be a home ADSL based internet TV and recording box and Google will follow their  Nexus One phone with a chrome OS powered tablet PC.
9. Virgin will launch a true 100mbps synchronous SDSL home internet connection with fibre to the house
10. Our Label Lock security labels will continue to find new and interesting markets!

2010 is going to be an exciting year, some great commercial opportunities and we are looking forward to it!

Any comments?

We are now getting close to the end of 2009, which has seen Mercian Labels celebrate 40 years in business  – there arent many things to celebrate in this economic climate and this is one of them!

We are still taking order for dispatch before Christmas, but will shutting down at 5pm Wednesday 23rd December and reopening at 9am on Monday 4th January 2010.

Merry Christmas to all our readers, and thanks to our many clients once again for their business during another successful year.  We have a  special offer planned for January 2010 – I’ll blog about this early in January so watch this space!

Yesterday I found out that the LabelEvent 2010 that I previously blogged about has been cancelled due to lack of support.  This is a great shame as the format promised to be a novel and exciting one.

However, the recession continues to bite deeper, and this event appears to have been a casualty of it.  I hope that the organisers try again in future.

new apple tamper evident security label

Apple have applied for a patent for a new tamper evident security label that will detect if a device has been opened, thus voiding the manufacturer’s warranty.  This has attracted much comment from user groups, with a general acceptance that manufacturers need to protect their warranties, but it does stop people tinkering with their devices.

Its an interesting, if not unsophisticated design compared to the technology we use for our Label Lock range of products and it will be interesting to see if Apple start a trend in using hidden tamper evident labels to detect unauthorised access.  After all – who wants to destroy the famous design appeal of a an ipod !

Watch this space.