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

A classic piece of labelling machinery!

I’m just back from a weeks holiday in Sydney seeing friends, and spent a very pleasurable couple of days in the Hunter Valley wine region.  At the Blueberry Hill vineyard I came across this classic piece of labelling machinery, a beautifully made wooden label applicator. Sometimes its easy to forget just how long labelling has been around!

YouTube Video of Label Lock Security seals

Label Lock security seals are our flagship product, and we are delighted to lauch this video on YouTube today to showcase the many and varied applications for both low residue and Dual Layer Label Lock security labels.  I hope you enjoy it.

A YouTube video introduction to digital label printing

At Mercian Labels we have been advocates of digital label printing for many years as it offers so many benefits for label users.  We have recently put together this video introduction to digital label printing that shows the process, benefits and finishes you can achieve using digital label printing.

I hope its enoyable and informative to watch – if you like it then please vote for it using  your YouTube account – if you dont like it then please comment below and we’ll see what we can do to improve it.

The labelling industry produces millions of m2 of siliconised label waste like this a year - and we cannt work out a way of re-using it.

As pointed out in a recent blog comment, the Avery Dennision group is to trial the bulk recycling of PET liner from its Fasson brand label stock, the first time I have heard of this type of scheme.  This is a positive step, and I hope that UPM Raflatac and others follow suit.

It is just a shame that its restricted to PET synthetic liner only, as its used in a very small percentage of total label stock (well under 10% if I had to guess).  The big underlying problem remains – recycling siliconised paper liner, and I hope that work continues from the big brands to address this problem.

We at Mercian Labels welcome this as a positive step, but there is a long way to go.  If you are an end user of labels and want to use the scheme, then please email me and I will put you in touch.

Label Expo 2009

The blogosphere appears to be without any reviews about Label Expo 2009 in Brussells, the biggest labelling show in the world. Tens of thousands of people go every 2 years, hundreds of stands, millions and millions of pounds/euros/dollars spent and not a single blogger out there reviewing it I can find (at least in english). Bizzare.

So, for anyone who didnt go and is looking for a users opinion of the show, here we go. Its bulleted for my convenience and speed.  Please quickly add your thoughts to the comments once you’ve read it – no registration needed, just type and press!

• it appeared to be a big show, as big as last time, but there was a lot more space in the halls due to halls not being filled with exhibitors, and certainly low number of attendees, certainly on the 2 days I was there.
• This was my 5th Label Expo (01,03,05,07,09) and this time 1.5 days at the show just wasnt enough to have all the quality conversations I wanted to, and I missed out on plenty of casual booth stops that I would have liked to as well .  For next time, I am going to have to stay over for 2 nights and get in 2.5 days.
• I’ve tried driving, flying and training it now, and I can confirm that without a doubt, Eurostar is the best and most convenient way to get to Label Expo from the UK (thanks to Barry D*** for that tip!)
• Exhibitors said it was busy on Wednesday and Thursday, but quieter on Friday and Saturday – indeed many exhibitor reps I wanted to speak to had gone home by Friday lunchtime!  The organisers were likened to Dick Turpin by 2 exhibitors I spoke to  – “highway robbery” was the phrase used  – apparently it isnt cheap to attend this show!
• The main new innovations I saw at the show that were genuinely new were the Holoprint printing technique from Nilpeter and the rush of digital inkjet incarnations all jumping on the Xaar 1001 bandwagon
• I saw some good products that were new to me but already established in the marketplace, mostly in connection with the security labelling part of our business as possible add ons to our Label Lock product range

• There was a small but useful Linkedin.com speed networking session on Saturday organised by Lou at the Linedin Digital Label Printing Group
• Kocker and Beck are moving into to the manufacture of rotary screen units, taking some business from the 2 existing suppliers, Stork and Gallus. Thats an interesting move – maybe rotary screen pricing will come down soon?
• “Lanbel” is a new concept in linerless labels, whereby you supply labels on a slightly offset web with each label sticking to itself.  I novel idea, but I doubt it will catch on.  Yes, it saves the liner, it just looks too unrelaible to use in a production environment

gallus granite press

• The new gallus Granite, made of slabs of granite was a novelty item to me; I just didnt get it.  Why? Why Why?  Apparently they were being sold cheap – 350k euros for a quality 8 colour press which is pretty good, but surely Gallus must be making a big big loss at those rates???
• Cold UV light for ink curing from LED lamps was new and very nice, but at £10k+ per lamp, I’ll give it a miss at the moment.  No doubt it will take over in due course – it looks very good.

there werent amny quality freebies - thank the credit crunch

• The global economic crisis is having its impact on show freebies – the best giveaway I got all show was a plastic packet of plasters from Evonik!
• There were some new high performance chemical resistant thermal transfer labelling solutions that didnt need lamination, using special ribbons and material combinations.
• Whilst there were plenty of people selling standard modular 5+ colour UV flexo presses at the show (yawn…), I think the message had got though that its the speciality machines that make the money, and that end of the market, even in combination presses, is commoditised.
• There was a sad lack of any initiative from any of the raw material substrate suppliers to address the industry wide problem of recycling of label production waste and the recycling of siliconisaed liner.  IMHO the solution to stopping the landfill of the milions of tonnes of this waste every year has to come form the big 2 suppliers (UPM RAFLATAC and AVERY DENNISON groups) and then onto the smaller coaters, Herma, Mactac, Flexcon, Manter, Smith  McLauin etc).  We cannt keep ignoring it, and it needs a concerted effort by the industry to address this.  FINAT, please lead the way – the problem isnt going away!  If one of the suppliers had launched a recycling solution for this, it would have been a complete show stopper.  As it was, the best news I saw on this front was that Calvin Frost from Channelled Resources launched a new European scheme to recycle liner .
• I dont know what happened to the PISEC 2009 move from Athens to Brusells, but it wasnt there.

Comments on the digital labelling developments

Basically there was nothing significantly new from either of the 2 main players in digital labelling (Xeikon and HP), both having put out major developments at DRUPA 2008, Xekion with its 3300 1200dpi fast solution, and HP with its high quality fast WS6000 series digital labelling presses.  There were some new partnerships developing on the software and web 2 print integration sides, but nothing new in terms of kit.  IMHO both these top end solutions are at the same level now; both have very similar quality, both have some advantages and disadvantages over the other, they are priced at different points and each have their own peculiarities, but nothing from any other digital label printer comes close to them at present.

There were lots and lots of new uv inkjet incarnations, all but 1 or 2 based on the xaar 1001 inkjet head.  Some were stand alone machines with no converting, some ran offline converting, some ran inline with full rotary converting, but none I could see ran inline with laser or semi rotary die converting.  The problem is fundamentally that they all suffer from the same problem – the resolution of the xaar 1001 head is only about 600dpi, and compared to either the HP or Xeikon at 1200dpi+, or conventional flexo or letterpress or screen or anything else, its just not as good.  I dont understand why anybody would buy a digital solution now with lots of lines in it from blocked nozzels or whatever, when you can by a xeikon or HP thats much higher quality at not much more money (HP may even give you a free one if you will use enough click charges!).

UV inkjet has a lot going for it, and I expect that it will take over the market for digital label printing at some point soon, but it wasnt LabelExpo 2009, I’m sure of that.  The advocates of full rotary inline converting for digital inkjet are misguided IMHO – I just cannt see why thats a good idea (Stork DSI 4330L, [wrong, edited out 29/9/09 ]  Rapid Machinery Squidjet etc).  Semi rotary or laser is the only way to take full advantage of digital, unless you are printing pre diecut stock (like EFI Jetrion advocate, in which you are really restricted to non bleeding images if you want any decent quality.

The Agfa/Edale digital inkjet press was unusually based on Toshiba TEC inkjet heads

The only non Xaar uv inkjet instalations I saw were from Agfa Dotrix / Edale which was not bad at all, but still not at the Xeikon/HP end of the quality scale, and I think the EFI Jetrion system has its own head system, but again its too narrow and the quality isnt there.

Xaar 1001 printhead

Of all the Xaar 1001 instalations, I thought the Durst quality was the best, but again, you have to be prepared to compromise on quality and productivity compared to Xeikon or HP.

GM had an interesting idea for an inline laser die cutting solution from Spartanics to fit into their existing converting line, but the price was just too high at the moment to launch it.  They also had a small footprint converting solution for offline digital labels, and there were many of these at the show.

There are a growing number of small desktop type short run digital labelling solutions from many different providers (eg Primeria), basically based on a reel to reel A4 laser colour printer or small inkjet system – nice but at £20k ish, and very expensive to run in anything over say 1000 labels, its only good for end users to print very small quantities of the same materials and designs in house, not industrial manufacturers.

Security Labelling

There was a real lack of anything new at the show – the cheap tamper evident materials (mostly from east Asia) I saw were rubbish, even the stand exhibitors couldn’t get many of them to work properly.

The Nilpeter Holoprint system is clever and effective

The exception was the new Holoprint technology from Nilpeter, arguably the premier brand in narrow web machinery.  Their system involves printing a 50,000dpi holographic image in register and inside a varnish with no foil, using a new printing system they have patented (read the patent here). It could be classed as a brand new printing technique, along with gravure, flexography,offset, letterpress, hotfoil, intaglio etc – really a combination of flexo and direct gravure. Very clever, impressive and cost effective to run I imagine.  I hesitate to guess how much it would cost to install though!

The Holoprint images are very good quality, unlike my photos!

Basically it works by flexo printing a UV varnish onto a web which is then embossed by a special plastic PDMS rubber shim that crucially can transmit highly focussed UV light so it is partially cured (or “set”) under the shim that embosses the hologrphic image into the varnish, which is then followed by a post cure.  Hats off to the guys who thought of that!

Conclusion

• A good show, too much “me too” in respect of traditional flexo offerings, and not enough innovation.
• Anybody who can crack 1200dpi, 20m/min+,250mm web+ narrow web UV inkjet will make a fortune.
• Belgian beer is excellent!

Leffe beer

Disclosure

I am the MD of a UK label printing company (Mercian Labels), we are are a Xeikon user, and these views are from the perspective of a label printer with interests in digital, flexo and security label printing – it is not an all encompassing independent review – if you want one, go to a journalist!)

Please now comment!

A reminder to please quickly add your thoughts to the comments once you’ve got this far – no registration needed, just type and press – opinions about anything very welcome, and unless your post is offensive I will publish it and share your views and get some debate going.

Label Lock is growing and we are now hiring

Our Label Lock security labelling product range  is really taking off, and we need an Export Sales Coordinator to help us manage this growth.  Please contact us if you are interested in this exciting role (no agencies please!).

We have been identified as one of the top 5 worldwide bloggers in labelling by the industry publication Label and Narrow Web.  Read about it here and thanks to Peter Renton for the recognition.

Thin sleeve flexo sleeve - image courtesy of Stork Prints

Mercian Labels are early adopters of technology in the label printing industry, and one area where we have been trialing new products recently is in the area of continuous sleeve technology for flexography, the mainstay printing technology for global label printing.  Sometimes these projects require us to tackle some interesting problems, and yesterday we encountered and solved one interesting problem that is bound to be encoutered by others in due course (and googleing it didnt find a solution!).

Here is our solution to the problem of how to design artwork to fit a continuous sleeve printing, a flexo printing technique that produces a continuous image that does not have a join, unlike conventional flexo printing where the plate is a sheet that obvious has a join as it is wrapped around the printing cylinder.  If you want to know more about flexography, then please read about it here.  The great advantage of continuous images for clients and brand owners is that you get a great quality images with no breaks  – a very useful benefit when producing continuous packaging.

The problem:
If you want to design a continuous sleeve then the images has to repeat exactly in the repeat of the print cylinder diameter. This is fairly easy to do when the images are just repeating around the cylinder in the direction of the cylinder, but when they go in a diagonal like many of our premier Label Lock security label text, then these are much much harder to design to match up precisely.

For those in the label printing, prepress or reprographic industry looking to solve this problem, here is our solution:

Decide the following:

1. For each individual image to be repeated around the sleeve the approximate width and height you wish it to be including gaps
2. the angle of the text across the plate
3. the repeat size of the printing cylinder
4. the width of the printing cylinder

For an example calculation
1 – about 40mm by 6.7mm image size for a 30mm image with a 10mm horizontal gap, and a 3mm image with a 3.7mm vertical gap
2 – 45 degrees
3 – 304.8mm for a 12 inch repeat

Steps:
1 Calculate the repeat length into which you have to fit the images

To do this use Pythagoras’ theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem

where for a 45 degree angle a=b (but if the angle is not 45 degrees see later as this step wont work)
so that a or b are the same
a=b=square root of [(304.8*304.8)/2]
so that a or b (the same) are 215.5261469mm

OR IF THE ANGLE IS NOT 45 DEGREES

If you want to do an angle that is not 45 degrees, then the Pythagoras’ theorem method wont work as a is not equal to b, but  I would expect the following to work (but not tried…)
Repeat length  = COS angle* repeat length of the cylinder
eg
Repeat length  = COS 45* 304.8 = 215.526 etc as above

2) work out how many EXACT repeats you can get into the repeat length

• label width…..     215.5261469 / 40mm = 5.388 repeats, not exact therefore use judgment to decide on either 5 or 6 repeats per repeat length.  I would pick 5 here, so that the EXACT repeat of the image width is not 40mm, but is 215.5261469/5 = 43.10522938mm
• label height…..     215.5261469 / 6.7mm =32.16808163 repeats, not exact therefore use judgment to decide on either 32 or 33 repeats per repeat length.  I would pick 32 here, so that the EXACT repeat of the image width is not 6.7mm, but is 215.5261469/32 = 6.735192091mm

3) layout the artwork in straight lines to be about double the size of the actual plate you need with image size and spacing as calculated in step 2

4) Rotate the grouped image to the angle you wish, usually 45 degrees

5) add a horizontal box of 304.8 x 250mm, the size of the print cylinder

6) Crop to the rectangle, and add further images at a different angle ALONG the web fitting the images into a 304.8m repeat as usual using the same method as in step 2 but for 304.8mm repeat

7) dispro  (if requested by the plate maker) and you are finished

PRESS RELEASE
28 July 2009
Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

Adrian Steele, MD of Mercian Labels is one of only 700 directors to achieve the IoD’s chartered director status from a membership of 45,000.

Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director of Cannock based Mercian Labels is the latest director to join the elite group of individuals who have achieved the Institute of Director’s Chartered Director status.

Adrian is now one of only 700 directors to become a Chartered Director in the UK out of the Institutes membership of over 45,000.

He achieved Chartered Director status after completing the IoD’s certificate and diploma in company direction in 2007 and successfully completing the rigorous professional review interviews.

Adrian said: “Running a business in today’s fast changing climate is extremely challenging. I need to ensure that I fully understood the legal and financial responsibilities that come with being a director. For me it’s about becoming a business professional.”

“The certificate and diploma in company direction provided the expert knowledge and guidance needed to run a company efficiently and profitably. Perhaps the most useful element for me was understanding how to prepare a robust strategy and techniques to understand the market place.”

“I have no doubt that the IoD’s training has contributed considerably to the ongoing success of Mercian Labels.”

Jean Pousson, Programme Director for the IoD in the West Midlands said:

“As a Chartered Director Adrian will be able to demonstrate to shareholders, stakeholders, clients and customers that his organisation is professional and successful.”

“Directors who complete the IoD’s qualifications in company direction are extremely well placed to appreciate all aspects of effective business leadership and sound corporate governance.”

Mercian Labels is the UK’s leading manufacturer of short run customised labels and produces the world’s best known security labelling brand, Label Lock.

Adrian has also been invited to become a Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

As a founder member of the British Short Run Labelling Association, we have been been supporting the new UK labelling event through our network in the past year since I first came to hear of it late last year.  The Label Event 2010 is not competition to Label Expo, the definative labelling show held every 2 years, but a commercially driven seminar day with an exciting agenda for all those involved in the UK labelling industry.  I hope that plenty of suppliers will support the event, as in this climate there are very, very few occasions for the instustry to come together, and this is an excellent concept for a new event.  I for one will make sure I will be there.

Only a couple of months ago the Royal Mail issued what it claimed to be a ‘tamper proof’ stamp to cut down on the illegal reuse of stamps in the UK.  Yesterday a houseguest showed me how these stamps can be removed with ease, using absolutely no equipment at all.

It is that easy, and the stamp labels are hardly ‘tamper proof’.  Contrast that with our own Dual Layer Label Lock product, that really is a security label in a class of its own.  The label separates into 2 dry peel labels if you try to remove it and cannt be reapplied.

We spend a lot of time attacking our own security labels using a variety of complex techniques, and there are very, very few that are undefeatable.  Royal Mail’s ‘tamper proof’ stamp using outdated security cut technology is not one of them.

Every 2 years the global label industry descend on Brussells for the biggest labelling show in the Calendar, Label Expo. It is a “must visit” show for anyone seriously involved in labelling, and I will be there on Friday 25th September and Saturday 26th September this year.

Please contact me if you are also going and fancy meeting up to discuss anything; I’d be happy to meet clients, suppliers or anyone who just fancies a chat over a Belgian beer!

We recently recruited a dedicated website designer to develop our websites, and he has done a cracking job with our main user website www.selfadhesivelabels.com .

www.selfadhesivelabels.com

The site has improved navigation, aesthetics, images, content and overall is a lot cleaner than our previous site, and we are really pleased with it. There has been a lot of clever work involved in this site, but as this is an open forum and I know our competitors watch this blog, I cannt cover them here! However, if any customers have comments on it, please feel free to leave your feedback below.

When you visit the supermarket or liquor store you will see thousands of different product labels. But hone in on just one product and you will notice every label for that product is identical. Well of course it is, you are probably thinking, because the product is the same. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Take Jones Soda (http://www.jonessoda.com/), the American soft drink maker, for example. If you see Jones Soda on the shelf in a retail store you will see many different labels on the same product. Jones Soda has made custom labels a part of their brand. They encourage their customers to upload wacky photos and they use these photos on their bottles. They use digital label printing to print different photos on their labels so each six-pack will have a different looking label. Since this program launched back in 1996 they have received over one million customer photos for use on their bottles.

St. Francis Winery in California (http://www.stfrancisred.com/) has taken a slightly different approach but is still leveraging variable data label printing. Their “RED” wine comes with 12 different background designs on their wine labels, so when a customer orders a case of wine they will see a different label on every bottle. And on the shelf in the liquor store customers will also see the different labels.

With digital printing technology it is very easy to make every label different. But there are so few companies taking advantage of this. Yet. In the two examples above these companies have made their unique labels an integral part of their brand. Of course, it is important to keep some components of your label the same so you can have a somewhat consistent look but having a part of your product label be variable can really differentiate your product from the competition.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this point. Say you sell premium coffee sourced from Brazil. You could feature beautiful photos of Brazil on your coffee bag labels. Stock photography is so inexpensive these days you could buy photos on places like istockphoto.com for just a few dollars each. You could then position your coffee as the company that has the beautiful photos of Brazil and make this part of your promotion for the brand.

In a few years time this kind of branding will be common place. But there is a window of opportunity right now that allows companies to stand out from their competition by leveraging the power of variable data labels. It is becoming more difficult for companies to do something really different that can attract the attention of consumers. Take advantage of the digital printing technology in this window of opportunity and do something different with your product labels.

Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, an all-digital label printer based in Denver, Colorado. He writes regularly about the label industry on their company blog at http://blog.lightninglabels.com.

Yesterday Peter Renton from Lightning Labels in the USA has agreed to do a guest post here. One of the labelling industry’s most popular bloggers, Peter is well known for his excellent blog focussing on labelling issues and design.  Watch this space!

PRESS RELEASE
11 April 2009
Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

Mercian Labels Ltd reaches 40 year anniversary

Short run labelling specialists Mercian Labels Ltd are celebrating after reaching their 40th anniversary. Opened on 11 April 1969, the company has grown from strength to strength as is now the UK market leader in short run labelling and breaking new ground with its innovative Label Lock^TM range of secutiy seals.

Managing Director Dr Adrian Steele said “It is very pleasing for all the team here to reach this milestone. In an economic downturn there are inevitably difficulties for many companies, but I am proud of the continuing growth in demand for our products that has enabled us to reach our 40th anniversary.”

The Mercian Labels Group is experiencing rapid domestic and export growth with the success of Label Lock, launched last year as a flagship brand of the Security Labels International division, and continued expansion of Mercian Labels, the UK market leader in fast-response short run labelling.

- – - ENDS – - -

- – - CONTACT – -

Mercian Labels Ltd

Watling Street

Cannock

WS11 0BD

UK

+44 (0)1543 431 070

Contact: Dr Adrian Steele

sales@mercianlabels.com

http://www.www.mercianlabels.com/

Yesterday I had an email from Ian Bates, Executive Vice President of Gerhardt USA who are a global player in label die cutting technology.  In the 1980’s Ian cut his teeth in the label printing world in our first label printing factory in the small village of Penkridge, Staffordshire.  He moved on from us over 20 years ago in 1988, and worked his way up the industry tree to his current position, as announced in labels and labelling last year.

Great to hear from you Ian, and congratulations on your latest career move.

PRESS RELEASE

28 January 2009

Cannock, Staffordshire, UK

Mercian Asset Labels relaunched to secure company property

Short run labelling specialists Mercian Labels Ltd have responded to the credit crunch by relaunching their range of asset labels to help UK businesses secure their property and deter theft with no fuss.

Asset identification labels are used by companies, government departments, the NHS and other organisations to track their assets and deter theft of their property. Commonly sequentially numbered to match a physical asset register and designed to destruct on removal to deter theft, asset labels are the first line of defense in securing expensive property against casual removal or determined theft.

Custom made in 3 days from the highest quality security labeling materials, Mercian Asset labels© will fulfill the majority of asset labelling requirements, and have fast delivery times and clear, transparent pricing. They come in different sizes with sequential numbering options, and are guaranteed to stick.

Managing Director Dr Adrian Steele said “In difficult trading conditions companies need to protect their property against theft and being mislaid in normal use. A rigorous asset labelling programme at the end of the financial year can help businesses take stock of company hardware, and deter theft or misuse of company property. We recommend managers responsible for tracking property check their asset registers now, and update them at least once a year.”

The Mercian Labels Group is experiencing rapid domestic and export growth with the success of Label Lock, launched this year as a flagship brand of the Security Labels International division, and continued expansion of Mercian Labels, the market leader in fast-response short run asset labelling.

- – - ENDS – - -

- – - CONTACT – -

Mercian Labels Ltd

Watling Street

Cannock

WS11 0BD

UK

+44 (0)1543 431 070

Contact: Dr Adrian Steele

sales@selfadhesivelabels.com

http://www.selfadhesivelabels.com/asset_labels_uk.html

PRESS RELEASE
17 November 2008
Cannock, Staffordshire, UK
Mercian Labels Group appoints new Chairman

Labelling specialists the Mercian Labels Group, based in Cannock UK, have recently appointed Mr Dennis Marrison as Chairman to support its next phase of expansion.

The Group is experiencing rapid domestic and export growth with the success of Label Lock, launched this year as a flagship brand of the Security Labels International division, and continued expansion of Mercian Labels, the market leader in fast-response short run labelling.

Marrison, with a background in manufacturing and the management of premier product brands, is the first board appointment from outside the business and the industry. “My work at Hamilton Acorn Ltd raised its performance to world class levels and won a Best Factory Award from Management Today and Cranfield University” he said, “and I am delighted to be able to put my business experience to use in the expansion of this innovative and dynamic company”.

Dr Adrian Steele, Managing Director, added “Dennis’s appointment adds significant strength to our board as we plan for further growth in the coming years. Despite the recession, we only see the Group continuing to build on its recent successes with another major new product launch due out shortly.”

Readers of this blog who are involved in the UK labels industry may be interested to know that there is a new UK based and focussed event being planned for UK label companies.  With the dominance of LabelExpo in Brussells every 2 years, there has not been a UK event of any significance for years.  Through the BSRLA I’ve been approached to support this event, which the BSRLA is doing. More details to follow, but I like to concept behind the event and I hope its a success.

If you wish to participate, then please let me know.

Today I’ve been at the Recycling and Waste Management show at the NEC in Birmingham on my continual quest to find a waste management solution for our stripping waste at Mercian Labels.  The disposal of this type of waste is the largest waste disposal problem we have as an industry (apart from silicon liner, which is already well addressed for volume users).

I went looking for 1 of 3 solutions:

1. recycling of our self adhesive paper and plastic waste
2. finding a waste carrier who will collect our waste and collect it for industrial incineration to fuel a cement works, or similar huge user of combustible fuels
3. find an onsite incineration solution that would safely allow us to us a “waste to energy” route to turn our waste stream into energy for heat, electric or similar.

I didnt get anywhere significant with any of the options.  Despite attending the biggest waste recycling show in the UK, there was very little interest in our industries problem.  The key conclusions from today:

• There is a no current solution for recycling self adhesive paper waste, but somebody is working on it. There is a limited volume solution for self adhesive plastic (PP and PE) waste by merging it with pure plastic extrusions
• If you want to send your waste to an industrial incinerator, then you need 5,000 tonnes per year, or else the cement companies and other are not interested. Small volumes users need not apply…  And they will charge you £60 per tonne for it (verses £55 a tonne to lanfill it!)
• EU regulations effectively prevent us using a purpose built safe onsite incinerator to turn our waste into heat energy or energy generation as the cost of the chimney scrubbing plant needed exceeds £250,000.

The best advice I got today was “ship your waste to China, as they have less strict environmental laws there and they can burn it for energy”. How can it be a good idea to ship your waste across the planet to a poorer country?

So, at a time of soaring energy prices, we just cannt recycle, reuse, incinerate or do anything with our waste stream but send it to landfill.  Landfill is not sustainable in the very long term, and in the current political climate in the medium term as well.

So, we are depressingly stuck between a rock and a hard place.  A solution has to be found to this problem, but at current landfill prices, I’m out of ideas.  It would be nice if our suppleirs took responsibility for the “waste” they leave us with, which would make it a more concentrated problem or a few major suppliers, rather than a large number of small users.  Somehow, I cannt see this happening.

Since early 2006 we at Mercian Labels have been conducting extended experiments on the effects of daylight on self adhesive labels printed using a variety of label printing methods, and we have regularly updated the results of these experiments on a dedicated webpage.

This can be a serious problem in our industry, as labels are often used for warnings and often exposed to daylight for extended periods.  The fact that UV energy in daylight causes fading in many printed media is well accepted, but beyond rumour and “conventional wisdom”, I’ve never actually seen any hard evidence that shows how different types of inks and printing techniques perform when faced with extended periods of exposure to daylight.

We have had experiments going since early 2006  and early 2008 on the following printing ink technologies:

• flexography – solvent based ink – dye based
• flexography – water based ink – pigmented
• letterpress – UV cured ink
• hotfoil - heat and pressure cured ink
• thermal transfer – wax resin based foil image
• Electrostatic toner based technology (v3) from Xeikon (Punch Graphix) from a Xeikon 330
• Digital offset technology from HP (Indigo) from a HP WS 4xxx press
• Electrostatic toner based technology from QuickLabel VIVO!
• UV cured inkjet imagery from Konica Minolta
• Electrostatic toner based technology from Degrava
• Inkjet images from Nilpeter using their Caslon technology with Xaar inkjet heads
• Inkjet images from Xaar using their own inkjet heads (unknown ink)

To give you an idea of what happens when labels fade badly, this is how much a label can fade if its made using inappropriate techniques for its end use application.

This image shows the difference between 2 halves of 4 different labels before and after 2.5 years of daylight exposure behind a south facing glass window.  The top 2 labels were printed with solvent based flexographic inks in a cream colour and a blue colour, and as you can see, the colour has faded to being almost no existent.  Areas with a clear lamination have given no protection to UV rays.

The middle red FRAGILE label was printed with water based flexo inks, and has noticeably faded but is still very clear.  The bottom barcode labels have hardly faded, although the lamination has yellowed.

Looking at a totally different technology, UV cured letterpress inks also fade quite noticeably, especially the lighter colours (yellow being particularly poor)

Best of all, hotfoil printed labels have shown almost no difference, apart from a colour change on the metallic blue foil on the middle gold label.

Looking at digital ink technology, our current test has been running for over 6 months, and there is hardly any changes in any of the many different ink technologies we have been trying.  See the detailed results here.

These (above) are from a Xeikon 330 digital label press.

and these (above) are from a HP Indigo digital label press

and (above) from a Vivo (above top), a Konica Minolta UV inkjet (above middle), and a Degrava (above right bottom “castelhino”)

And the final ones above are from the Xaar printhead used on a Nilpeter Caslon machine and from Xaar themselves.

Conclusions

I guess these observations and opinions will be of serious interest to those involved in specifying labels, and will probably destroy a few myths:

1. UV cured ink technology is not resistant to UV light!
2. solvent based inks have been a mainstay of the industry for decades, and whilst they are easy to use, they fade easily and have limited long term performance.  In line with our Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we at Mercian Labels do not routinely use solvent based inks on any of our labels any more.
3. cheap and simple thermal transfer labels are very resistant to UV, probably due to the high carbon content in the ribbon
4. All the established and emerging digital label printing technologies have a good resistance to UV (so far), but one will emerge as the winner, so watch this space!

I would positively welcome comments from customers, label users, suppliers, manufactuers or others in the industry on this subject – are the results of this experiment what you would expect?  Would anyone wish to predict which if the digital label technologies will do best?

I posted a blog thread a few days ago about our reservations about RFID as a practical techology at this point in time, and today it appears as if there is another serious flaw in the use of RFID in labelling.

The BBC are reporting that the encryption used in one of the biggest RFID rollouts in the UK has been hacked, that of the London Tube Oyster card scheme.

One of the exciting possibilities of RFID in security labelling is to hold secure information on a challenge-respond basis, and its cases such as this that severly dent the reputatrion of RFID as a reliable technology.

The obvious question to me is, why did they use such a weak encrytion system?  Surely something along the lines of 128 bit public key encryption could be used that takes an awful lot of processing time to crack.

I dont think we have heard the last of this, and demonstrates a fundamental weakness of RFID in labelling.  If you can remotely reprogramme an “encrypted” chip, you can change the price, destination or whatever ona an item wihtout anyone knowing. Watch this space.

We believe that it was in 1952 when the first ever barcode label was produced, however it was not until the 1980s that barcode labels became popular to the public. When they were first produced they were only really used for one reason and that was for identifying railroad cars. This was a while ago though and since then barcode labels have become increasingly popular and technology has become so much greater. Being able to track and identify the movement of items error free, it is no real surprise that barcode labels have become largely popular.

RFID labels have been much touted as the way forward, and will replace barcode labels in due course.

Our experience, for what it is worth, is that RFID is expensive, prone to errors, and only really gives 2 advantages over barcodes: Speedy contactless reading (if RFID labels do read in your environment, as many dont if they are close to metal or water), and extremely high volume data storage (compared to 2D barcodes).

I’d be really interested in hearing from existing RFID label users with their expereinces.  There seems to be a lot of hype, and very little actual purchasing and successful rollouts of RFID labels.

If you have a different take on this situation, please post here.  We are actively looking at RFID labels, particularly in security labelling, but as far as we can see, barcodes are still a very good solution at the present time.

If you are a really small volume user of labels, you may be wondering if it is best to have your own A4 sheet label printer at home to print labels, or pay for a professional to print their labels for them. At Mercian Labels , we have want what is best for you.

If you are happy with a very limited range of paper labels, and do ultra small runs lengths, then its probably cheaper for you to print your own labels.  This is fairly easy for black and white labels on paper rectangles, but gets a significantly more cumbersome when you want photographs, non standard shapes, or anything but permanent adhesives.

When you needs grow such that:

• you are using higher volumes
• you are getting significant wastage
• you want a non standard adhesive or shape
• you need variable information
• you want better image quality

then the time has come to talk to us at Mercian Labels.  We have no minimum order quantities, and our label solutions are quick and cost effective.  When you’ve outgrown the desktop printer, or your time is better spent doing other things, come and talk to us!

Many of our customers enquire about what adhesives could or should their labels use. There is never a straight forward answer to this question, as there is a wide selection of adhesives, and it all depends on what use the label is going to be put to. This is because all adhesives are formulated for different reasons and they all have individual jobs to do.

If a customer needed labels for items of food, then food grade labels are essential. They are used on fruits such as apples, plums, bananas and many more, as they do not leave any unwanted residue onto the fruit as easy feel they are a lot more hygienic, and any residue left is edible and harmless.

If a customer wanted a more secure label then tyre tack labels are probably the best. They are applied onto tyres and are extra sticky so they are not as likely to peel off. There are also frost fix adhesive labels which have a service temperature of -40 Celsius which makes them very suitable to sticking onto items which are to be frozen.

There are many other types of adhesives to suit what the customer needs, including hard hat label adhesives which are usually used on hard hats which builders wear. These labels are stuck onto the hats for the workers own safety and do not damage or corode the plastic of the hard hat, potentially damaging its structural integrity and strength.

Whatever your specialist adhesive label application, we are likely to have a potential solution to hand – give give us a call.

At Mercian Labels our customers constantly design their own custom personalised labels, which allows them to create their own designs before we print them. You may want to design your own labels for many different reasons, whether it is a one off design to mark a specific event, or for company use in marketing a wider product range. When customers design these labels the best thing to do is to get them printed professionally to get the best possible quality.

We find that there are so many different events to attend now that benefit from custom labels.  Some people may create and design labels for certain events such as weddings, where they can stick labels onto anything to give their wedding a more personalised look (I went to one last weekend in fact that did this!). Other events for which people may decide to design labels for are parties, as this would also give a party a more personalised look.

If someone has made their own bath products, or brewed their own beer, they would more than likely want their own custom personalised labels to promote their products. With your products having their own labels, customers are more likely to purchase, as they have a more professional look.

The possibilities, especially with digitally produced labels, are only limited by your imagination!

Asset identification labels are useful for so many different organisations, and here at Mercian Labels we have many people contact us asking for such labels. Asset labels have so many different uses, but they are commonly used to help organisations track their assets and deter theft of their property.  One common area of confusion we find with asset labels is what the best material to use for asset labels.

The variety of end use applications for  makes the correct material selection very important, as the surfaces vary considerably, from smooth glass cabinets to painted metal computer cases. The identification labels usually contain the asset number and other variable data such as a barcode and serial number. It is important that the labels are resistant to abrasion and solvents which are used in the environment.

A key feature of asset labels is that they are difficult to remove, to deter theft.  We consequently usually specify a top quality semi gloss white ultra destructible vinyl. Ultra destructible vinyl fragments into tiny pieces (which is called the “eggshell effect”) if anyone attempted to remove the label. This makes for a secure asset label that can be customised easily in small runs, and not only identifies the product, but deters theft as well.

Other security label materials can be used, but often do not give as permanent a mark as ultra destructible vinyls.

Such security labels are our speciality – please give us a call if you are looking for such products.

Yesterday we just completed a change of business bankers.  This is not an activity to be undertaken lightly, but given that Mercian Labels has doubled in size in recent years and moved into the “commercial” banking sector of £1M-£25M turnover businesses we had really outgrown our previous banking arranagment.

For those company owners and company directors watching this blog, I thought I’d put down a few “lessons to self”:

1. when a business relationship dosnt work well for both parties, mutual respect and trust falls apart pretty quickly, and everyone reaches for the contractual terms and conditions.  If you need to move banks, do it swiftly and amicably, and accept that there will be some pain.
2. You will be surprised at how easy banking can be when you move to a forward thinking bank with a real grasp of IT – its so much easier to with with a company when you have similar cultural outlooks.
3. Bankers, in common with other business service professionals (I’m thinking lawyers!) sometimes regard themselves as above any questions, negotiation or discussion – their word is final and beyond reproach.  Well, in my opinion, its not – everyone should be professional and be prepare to explain and justify their professional decisions.  Disaffected bankers dont like it when you legitimately question or challenge issues, but it is worth it – on this occasion a careful check of the numbers saved us a very significant sum.

I’m not going to mention names here as that would be unprofessional, but in future I will check the small print of professional contracts even more carefully than I do now!

At Mercian Labels we have a variety of different label printing techniques, these include printing digital, hotfoil, thermal and flexographic labels. The different label printing options can result in confusion by our customers to what way would be best to print their labels. There is no right or wrong answer to this question as each label printing method has its own benefits.

For customers who have many different designs of labels but also has a tight budget, then digital label printing would more than likely be most suitable for them. Our digital label printers can print short runs of “process” colour labels, incorporating photographic images to be printed. Customers who choose to have their labels printed digitally have the benefit of not having to pay expensive block charges, and are able to have photographic type images on their labels without having to pay any extra costs.

Some people may choose to have their labels printed on hotfoil, as this allows people to have excellent quality labels with up to 6 spot colours. Hotfoil labels are excellent for brands who want to advertise their products it a cost effective way. With these labels you can have your own design, logo and text professionally printed onto papers, synthetics or transparent or clear materials with low origination charges. Customers also benefit greatly by the fact that they can have special size/shape requirements for their labels and do not have to pay hundreds of pounds for a cutter, which can occur if the label is very small or unusually shaped.

Thermal transfer printing may be the best option for some people who want barcode labels. Usually we produce either large or very small text barcodes, with simple logos, consecutively numbered labels. They are mainly used for industrial labelling applications such as tracking. The main benefit in getting Mercian Labels to print you barcode labels is that it is no longer in your hand as we will be doing all the hard work.

Flexographic label printing is another great method, though there are more limitations. Flexographic printing is mainly used for larger productions with simpler designs and colour combinations with up to 4 colours without special effects. The main benefits of flexographic label printing is that it is a economical printing method used for larger print runs as larger and faster machines are used. This printing method is usually chosen for industrial applications.

Letterpress and gravure label printing are still around, but more often used for specialist applications now.

If you want some free advice on what label printing method is best for your idea – drop us a line. Our advice is free, and we dont bite!