Many quality brands have taken advantage of the benefits of digital labelling technology to expand their range using multiple designs of labels

One of the most powerful technologies we have benefited from at Mercian Labels is a powerful custom built database that allows us to analyse buying trends amongst our customers. We presented some of these recently at the BPIF Labels Event in late 2011, and after further analyses we are making a small but important change to our market offer.

Over the past decade our “Mercian Labels” business division has evolved considerably to the point where we are known as the market leader in short run labelling for UK businesses. With the increasing market driven growth in the benefits of digital labelling, its clear that many of our customers don’t see us as just a short run specialist, but instead select Mercian Labels as their labelling partner for a much greater variety of work on the basis of our expertise and flexibility to quickly manufacture and deliver many different designs of labelling.  This is great news for both us and our customers, but does move us slightly away from being just simply ‘short run’ specialists to a larger businesses that is growing more and more key accounts in multi design labelling, taking advantage of the benefits of our investments in digital labelling technology.

We have therefore decided to refocus our USP as ‘The Premier Multi Design Label Printing Specialists for UK Businesses’ to reflect this customer driven change. We will of course still undertake a large number of short run labelling jobs, but it is clear that Mercian Labels’ continued growth has taken it to a new area of speciality in multi design labels. Our website has been updated accordingly.  Onwards and upwards!

If you want to be confident that your labels are printed with food-safe inks, then specify Xeikon digital label printing from Mercian Labels using our FDA approved toner inks

One of the hottest topics in the world of labelling and narrow web packaging in recent years has been how to tackle the problem of toxic chemical components from printing inks (particularly UV cured) on packaging from migrating into foodstuffs, since it was first identified as an issue in 2005.  Whilst the use of the chemical ITX was subsequently dropped, many customers and brand owners responsible for food and drink labelling have been keen to find a food safe packaging solution, particularly for digital labelling where growth is strong, especially after the further benzophenone scare in early 2011 where there was a major contamination episode in noodles in Germany.  There are now special low migration UV flexo ink solutions, but our focus is on digital labelling for our shorter run requirements:

There are 3 principle digital label printing technologies:

• Xeikon dry toner electrophotography used by Mercian Labels
• HP Indigo ‘wet’ toner electrophotography  with a solvent carrier
• UV inkjet that contains photoinitiators similar to those in UV flexo inks (see above)

Only the Xeikon process that we exclusively use for digital label printing has inks (toner) that are FDA approved for both indirect food contact and direct (non fatty) food contact, making them about as food safe as they can be.  Specifying Xeikon QAi toner for all food labelling requirements is important for those responsible for food packaging as this is currently the only way of demonstrating that digitally printing labels are printed with food safe inks.  This has only been available since its launch August 2010, and is an important development for the industry that some are still unaware of.  You can download the  official certification statement from Xeikon here.

If you are not specifying Xeikon QAi toner for your food label requirements , then please talk to us about the benefits of moving to FDA certified food safe  labels.

We have settled on our definition of what 'short run' labelling is - and for us its 1 to 1 million labels of each design

Customers often ask us “what do you call  a ‘short run’ of labels?”, and our answer often varies on the circumstances of the customer.  Some customers consider that 500 labels is a long run and ask if its to much for us to handle (no its not!), and others with more established needs consider anything less than 2,000 meters of material (commonly about 1,000,000 labels) to be short run.  Whilst it is accepted that the vast majority of UK label printers prefer and focus on large customers, at Mercian Labels we have always specialised in servicing smaller runs of labels, and this is not changing.

However, having had a bit of a ‘pow wow’ about this, we have settled on the best definition of what ‘short run’ labelling is – and for us its 1 to 1 million labels of each design.  Customers have been quick to take advantage of the benefits of digital labelling where we can incorporate any combination of designs very cost effectively with no origination charges, and as a simple answer, we consider job of between 1 and a million labels as being our area of speciality.  Our multi design label printing website at www.selfadhesivelabels.com has now been updated to reflect this.

2012 is looking to be our best ever, and we want your ideas to help develop our offering Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Its a simple question, and one that is often not asked enough to customers.  How can we improve?  In some of the business areas we operate in it is hard to interact with customers face to face regularly, and so the online medium is vital for us.  So to commence the year we would like to invite any and all comments and suggestions, positive and negative, on how we could improve.

Questions we are particularly looking for answers to include:

• What new products would you like to see, or what problems tacked by our NPD team?
• How could we improve our service to you?
• If you use other labelling businesses as well as us, what do they offer that we dont?
• If you could make one change to the way we do business with you, what would it be?

Please feel free to email me directly with your thoughts (adrian.steele@mercianlabels.com) , send us a tweet to @mercianlabels or post a comment below.

We have a number of exciting plans for 2012 including a brand new product range, service improvements from a new and easier to use software process and of course the expansion of our digital labelling capability with the new Xeikon 3300, available to both trade and end user customers.

Happy new year, and I hope that 2012 brings a record year of trading for all our customers.

Adrian Steele – MD

The Mercian Labels Group are exhibiting at the Packaging Innovations Show - NEC 29 Feb- 1 March 2012

We are delighted that all the divisions of The Mercian Labels Group are exhibiting in the Ecopack zone of  The Packaging Innovations Show at the NEC near Birmingham on 29 February – 1 March 2012.

Our digital labelling process uses FDA food safe toners and is fuly deinkable for recycling

• Mercian Labels will be showing its latest digital labelling capabilities from the new Xeikon 3300 with FDA approved food safe inks and fully deinkable and recyclable digital label print.

AC Labels specialise in variable barcode labelling

• AC Labels will be exhibiting its high quality variable data labelling capabilities with 100% barcode verification

Label lock tamper proof security tape

• Security Labels International will be exhibiting its range of Label Lock tamper evident security labels and our latest innovation, tamper proof tape

Give our sales team a call and arrange a meeting or just pop up to see us.   You will find us on stand E22. Tickets are free and it is going to be one of the main UK packaging and labelling shows of 2012.

See you there!

Wow – ever seen anything like this!  This is the work of artist Yayoi Kusama who is exhibiting at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art  with The Obliteration Room.  Take a whole load of kids and coloured stickers in a massive white room and see what happens – amazing!

Credits to:

• Queensland Art Gallery and photographer Mark Sherwood for the first 4 images
• Other images from Stuart Addelsee and heybubbles.
• @crafty_noo who pointed out this work on the Collosal Art and Design blog

Ingede's Axel Fischer said: "These results are interesting, but not surprising. This is not proof that it will work in every mill, this is not a model for a general deinking plant, and it does not change our attitude of the deinkability of Indigo. "This only means that HP should label Indigo as Indigo paper, collect it and ship it to Arjowiggins but keep it out of the rest of Europe"

We have noted before the benefits of using Xeikon dry toner for digital label printing as its fully recyclable (known as deinking), where the competitive ink technology from HP Indigo is not.

Printweek are today reporting the results of a trial where a used paper trial recycling trial containing 5% of HP indigo paper has been recycled, albeit in a specialist paper recycling mill.  And thats at just 5%, with 95% of the paper from other non HP indigo sources…  The problem is that processes such as HP Indigo contaminate the paper recycling planst and produce this – recycled paper with coloured ink in it that cannt be removed using normal processes:

The industry trade body for recycling body INGEDE commented on the trial as reported by Printweek as follows:

….. However, deinking trade body Ingede questioned the value of the trial, because it was carried out at the highly specialised Greenfield site, a Bright White Office Paper mill, rather than at a standard de-inking plant.

Ingede’s Axel Fischer said: “These results are interesting, but not surprising. This is not proof that it will work in every mill, this is not a model for a general deinking plant, and it does not change our attitude of the deinkability of Indigo.

“This only means that HP should label Indigo as Indigo paper, collect it and ship it to Arjowiggins but keep it out of the rest of Europe.“   …. (emphasis ours)

I think that confirms that if you want your digital labels to be recyclable and not contaminate the waste paper industry’s raw material stream so it may have to go to landfill, then you must continue to specify on Xeikon digital printing, and not HP Indigo.  And of course, its brilliant quality, FDA foodsafe and very cost effective !

GENERAL MANAGER COOKS UP A STORM

AC Labels (2010) Ltd enjoyed a festive breakfast this morning cooked by master chef Peter Hartshorn enjoyed by all.

Thanks Pete from all the staff at AC Labels.

Happy Christmas from The Mercian Labels Group

We will be closing for Christmas from 1.00 p.m. Friday, 23rd December 2011, and will return on Tuesday, 3rd January 2012.

May we take this opportunity to thank all our staff, customers and suppliers  for their support from each of our businesses (Mercian Labels, Security Labels International,  Label Lock and AC Labels ).

On 1st December 2011 we decommissioned our Xeikon 330 digital label printing machine after many years of great service and upgraded to the latest Xeikon 3300 version.  Whilst the retiring machine was destined for recycling, we could not let the occasion pass without a celebration of its achievements over many years.  So we got our thinking caps on, and our sales team suggested we organise some celebratory dancing in a quintessentially English style…

Enter The Jockey Morris Men of Birmingham, who performed a series of traditional English “farewell” dances to see off our old machine into the sunset….

Among the dances performed were:

• Vandals of Hammerwich – a stick dance from the Lichfield tradition. The title comes from some inhabitants of Hammerwich (near Mercian Labels in Cannock) who set fire to a wood in Staffordshire in the Middle Ages – hence the placename of Burntwood.
• Lads a Buncham – a traditional fighting dance from the village of Adderbury in Oxfordshire. Danced with long sticks (quarterstaffs)
• Laudnum Bunches – a handkerchief dance from the village of Headington Quarry – now a suburb of Oxford. The title comes from Laudanum – a popular opiate!
• Highland Mary – a handkerchief dance from the village of Bampton in Oxfordshire. It is sometimes danced to the tune of ‘Norton New Bell Wake’ which comes from a poem in St Nicolas Church, Kings Norton which celebrates the installation of new bells in 1783.

We recorded some of it and have uploaded it to Youtube.

Enjoy!

One of the main reasons Mercian Labels decided to upgrade its digital label printing capability to the new Xeikon 3300 was the quality of the new QA-i toner.  Here, in the industry’s leading technical journal Narrow Web Tech 3-2011 you can read about the evolution of the Xeikon Toner, and the benefits of the new toner formulation.  You can download a PDF of the article here.

the basic frame of a Xeikon digital label printing machine, showing the locations of the 5 print station stack

Last week I presented a case study on the adoption of digital label printing at an event organised by Xeikon in Lier, Belgium, and enjoyed a tour around their factory where our new digital label printing machine is being made.

Half way to being built, with most of the imaging technology assembled. This machine has a sheeter unit built in on the left hand side

It was really interesting to see how the 100+ machines a year are build and tested to such high standards, and the fantastic technology that is able to create the highest resolution in the market using its 1200dpi imaging technology manufactured in the factory clean room.

Our new machine is being installed in 2 weeks and we are looking forward to offering our customers the benefits of much higher resolution, better productivity and FDA approved, foodsafe and  deinkable toner.  Our team cannt wait!

We will be upgrading to the superb quality Xeikon 3300 in the first week of December 2011

At Label Expo 2011 we announced the exciting news that we are upgrading our digital labelling capability to include the new Xeikon 3300 – the fastest, highest quality, most environmentally friendly digital labelling solution available with fantastic lightfastness, no origination charges and brilliant colour resolution.

The installation will take place during the first week of December, so we ask and advise our customers to place orders wherever possible ahead of this time please to ensure we meet your delivery expectations we we expect to have limited digital label production during that week. All other processes will not be affected!

The upgrade will increase our capacity, improve lead times still further and give us even higher 1200dpi quality and more vibrant colours.  We cannt wait!

‘Trade’ customers are welcome to approach us about our special trade only service (as covered by Printweek) which will be further enhanced with the new installation.

Since I potted out all of my 80 chilli plants in May from the original batch, we have had a pretty cool summer, and it has not been a good year for chilli growing.  After a first small crop, the indian summer produced a second and final crop that I cut today before the frosts set in – its pictured above.  Compared to previous years, its been rubbish considering that I started off with 10x as many plants!  However, I am going to preserve what I have by drying on top of the boiler ready for some serious winter curries.  Better luck next year!

I have blogged for years on the problems facing the labels industry in managing its waste streams, and to a large degree most of the problems are  still here, but getting closer to a solution. This is a summary of the options as far as I know:

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

Siliconised glassine paper release liner (“backing paper”) – this cannt be recycled with normal paper as you need a sophisticated deinking plant to remove the silicone.  Consequently the options are limited to landfill, waste to energy or recycling (which is often uneconomic at current rates).

Major recyclers of siliconised glassine release liners include:

• Chanelled resources – who ship the paper for reuse overseas
• Cycle for green - recycling by reprocessing at Lenzing Papier in Austria at a specialist plant
• UPM papers- recycling in France via  Vertaris by reprocessing 

To my knowledge there are no UK recyclers of glassine liner, and only 2 plants in Europe (France and Austria) that can reproceses it.

Siliconised PET (polyester) release liner - this cannt be recycled with normal PET.  Consequently the options are limited to landfill, waste to energy or specialist recycling

Major recyclers of siliconised PET release liners include

• Avery Dennison (as previously reported here)

Siliconised PP (polypropylene) release liner - this is a new and emerging release liner solution that can sometimes be recycled with other PP plastic waste provided that it is properly segregated.  Consequently the options are limited to landfill, waste to energy or specialist recycling

Major recyclers of siliconised PP release liners include

• UPM

Matrix Waste

This is the biggest unaddressed problem.  Mercian Labels commissionsed a report from a leading European academic specialising in waste management in 2008, which recommended that the only viable options were landfill (undesirable but cost effective), or waste to energy, which is the position we are trying to move to.  This is because its a mix of paper, plastic, adhesive, ink and silicone that cannt be separated into different waste streams.  I have blogged on this subject before here and here , and the position remains largely unchanged.  From our perspective, we are waiting for a waste to energy plant to be built near one of our operations in Cannock as our long term solution.

If you generate batches of more than  3 tonnes of liner then you can get it recycled through one of the routes described above.  If you are a smaller user, and most people will be, then I am afraid that to our knowledge there are no other recycling options available at the moment in the UK.

Digital Printing for labels Seminar

We are delighted to announce that Mercian Labels have been asked to present at the digital label printing technical workshop run by BPIF Labels on 2 November in Daventry, UK.

Along with the usual suspects  from Xeikon, Xaar, HP, LabelTrax, UPM Raflatac, AB Graphics & Esko Artwork, we will be one of 2 digital labelling specialists presenting.

To add a bit of variety to the agenda, we will be showing totally new data from 9 years of short run labelling experience on changing run lengths, order sizes, lead times and digital labelling sales growth as well as sharing some of the challenges of meeting customer expectations in this marketplace.

The agenda is here and booking form here. If you are a labels user interested in digital labels, or otherwise involved in the industry, then it would be good to see you there.

Do you want to earn £1000?

We are seeking to make a strategic appointment for our Cannock Operation by appointing a talented rising star in the labels/packaging industry to a new post of Operations Manager.

If you know of a suitable candidate who we should talk to through your network, then please email adrian.steele@mercianlabels.com with their name and we will do the rest.

If you are the first person to nominate them (judged by the time of your email to me) and we end up hiring them at any point in the next 12 months then we will send you £1000 after they have worked for us for 1 month as a thank you for the introduction.  This offer does not apply to agencies where we will have to pay an additional fee – it is intended for private individuals only, and you can donate the money to a charity of your choice  if you wish.

Celebrating the deal at LabelExpo (L-R) -- Paul Briggs - Industrial Sales Manager Xeikon UK, Adrian Steele - MD The Mercian Labels Group, and Wim Maes - CEO Xeikon

We were delighted to announce at last week that we have invested in the latest and fastest Xeikon 3300 digital labelling press to further bolster our digital labelling capabilities for our 9000 UK business customers.

This new press is fast, productive, fantastic 1200dpi quality, has excellent colour matching, it is solvent free & environmentally friendly as it can be recycled, and uses FDA approved food safe and lightfast toner.   It is simply the best current digital label printing technology you can buy.

The news  was covered by Label & Labelling, Printweek & The Labelling Blog amongst others.  This latest investment is on top of the £1M we announced earlier in 2011 and confirms our commitment to grow our digital labelling market.  The new press will be installed later this year and we will of course be looking for new business to fill its hungry capacity next year.

So if you are looking for a genuinely fast supplier of the very best digital labels from the UK market leader in short run label printing, then you know where to come!

(Are you a trade buyer or print management business with a significant digital labelling spend for your clients? If so, please contact our trade desk for details of our special MeTra deal)