Siegwerk opens inkjet inks production facility in France

Siegwerk, one of the leading global providers of printing inks for packaging applications and labels, has expanded its Technical Center in Annemasse, France with a new production facility for inkjet inks.

The investment follows the construction of a dedicated inkjet laboratory last year that was built to already extend the company’s R&D capabilities in this area.

Siegwerk is committed to further drive the development of inkjet inks that meet all printing process functionality and efficiency requirements and address the specific challenges of the labels and packaging segments.

Today, the site in Annemasse is home to 275 employees and counts as Siegwerk’s leading European plant for water-based printing inks and varnishes.

The Center of Excellence produces more than 25,000 tons of printing ink per year.

Over the last three years the company has invested €3M to specifically build up its development, production and testing capacities in inkjet technology.

"After opening our designated inkjet laboratory last year, we now opened our first designated inkjet production facility in Annemasse – all in line with our vision to become the leading packaging ink provider worldwide”, says Herbert Forker, CEO at Siegwerk.

"Going forward we will invest an additional €2M in new equipment for the inkjet ink technology over the next five years.

"Annemasse will be our driving force for future inkjet ink solutions.”

Siegwerk has already invested nearly €11M over the last 12 years to build up a sustainable and successful Technical Center in France with high competitiveness in Europe.

As well as the investment in the inkjet laboratory, in 2016 Siegwerk also opened a Blending Center for the production of water-based inks to further strengthen its portfolio as a full-range provider for packaging printers.

Today, the Technical Center in France, Siegwerk’s second largest market in the EU, pools profound technical know-how around water-based, UV and inkjet inks as well as best-in-class analytical capabilities.

"Annemasse always was our innovation hub.

"It’s the cradle of our ‘Global Innovation Network’, a global in-house research network, which works on the development of eco-friendly inks with consistent performance, as well as new ink technologies and product packaging innovations for the future”, added Forker.

Given its unique capability of coping with short print runs and lead times, digital printing takes label and packaging printing to the next level.

Short print runs enable brand owners to adjust and customize print designs easily and thereby differentiate their brands from competitors through regionalisation and personalisation of their product packaging.

Shorter lead times allow printers to react fast to the market and customer requirements.

Digital printing also supports sustainable printing processes while offering printers the reduction of waste and ink stocks.

"Overall, we see a growing demand for application-driven ink systems and especially for inkjet ink customisation”, says Matthieu Carnie, Business Development Manager at Siegwerk.

"From our perspective, the most promising technologies are UV inkjet, suitable for narrow web printing on thick material such as labels & direct-to-pack, and water-based inkjet, suitable for single pass large width printing on corrugated and flexible packaging.

"Both technologies can also be suitable for printing on folding carton.”

The company’s inkjet offering today focusses on UV technology – covering conventional UV to full LED curing.