Orora has unveiled Australia’s first EFI Nozomi digital corrugating packaging press at its Oakleigh site, alongside its Highcon Euclib IIC laser cutter and creaser, which it says dispenses with traditional die cutters.
The Orora Innovation Expo18 was staged in the company’s Speciality Packaging facility. Much of the equipment on display has been purchased in the past 12 months as part of its Global Innovation Initiative, including some $75m which CEO Nigel Garrard says has enabled the company to develop advanced packaging solutions.
Scott Mayer, general manager, Orora Specialty Packaging says, “With variable print, we will be able to have hundreds of different designs done in one run.”
Brian Lowe, group manager, Paper and Cardboard, Orora Fibre Australia, says, The Nozomi is the most sophisticated machine to print high quality graphics on corrugated cardboard. It is part of a broader spend. Around $100m has been invested in the last two years on Fibre. Orora has spent $45m on innovation.
“Variable print on this scale was not available in the past, there is not a huge pent up demand for it because it just has not existed. The machine has only been running for a week, but there has been a lot of interest. I think markets will open up in randomisation, personalisation and identification, particularly in barcodes, QR codes and other data. I think identification will be big.
“How much of the business will be taken up by variable and digital print could be around 10 per cent but we do not know yet. Quality in variable print was not available before, so it is hard to say but I do think there will be a sizeable portion of the business taken up by it.”
“We will also be adding white printing to the Nozomi sometime later this year, as it is not available yet. It can be printed onto board for a glossy white finish or it can be printed onto a box, with something else printed on top, increasing colour intensity.
“A large portion of the industry will still need to be large brown boxes but there is interest among customers for high quality print.”
The Nozomi uses a water based sealant so the ink sits on the coating and is not soaked into the cardboard. It covers around 97 per cent of the colour gamut, which is useful for representing brands and their logos. Effectively all colours will be covered.
Customers also viewed the Limitronic Limitag V6 Orion in-line printer, a mobile in-line printer offering high resolution, four colour printing on both sides of a carton. Orora says the Orion, which is a first for Australia, allows customers to receive plain cartons which can be printed on-demand, reducing inventory and minimising waste.
Glass bottle sleeving was on a display, a decorative shrink sleeve application at the company’s Gawler glass production facility that packages and presents a customer’s beverage brand, increasing on-shelf visibility and supporting brand promotion, while concealing off-coloured glass, which is a byproduct of the bottle manufacturing process.
Orora is also now able to print labels through its Accu-labeller, an automated, high speed labelling machine using ultra-thin, high-quality biodegradable paper providing what it says is the highest application rate of labels on wet and fuzzy fruit/vegetables.
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