HEIDELBERG TARGETS CARTONS WITH FLEXO

The world’s biggest press manufacturer, Heidelberg, is launching a new webfed flexo carton printing press, the Boardmaster, which it says will meet the pivot by brands away from plastic to fibre-based packaging.

The new Heidelberg Boardmaster is designed for high-volume folding carton printing, it is a flexographic web printing system, with a machine availability of up to 90 per cent, and a maximum printing speed of 600 meters per minute.

Heidelberg says international food and beverage brands in particular are looking to combine printing quality with ever greater sustainability and recyclability across their entire packaging portfolio, and they are increasingly moving away from plastic.

Heidelberg cites market research analysts Smithers, which says that while in the food sector plastic is still the dominant packaging material by some margin, the proportion of fibre-based packaging made from materials such as board and paper, will overtake plastic in the medium term, and assume the top spot with a proportion of more than 40 per cent.

Heidelberg says that flexographic printing is now the number one technology in the packaging market, and is continuing to benefit from the globally stable and significant growth of packaging and labels. It is already being used to produce some 15 per cent of the total folding carton volume, and this proportion is continuing to increase.

Christian Steinmassl, who is in charge of the packaging segment at Heidelberg said, “The Heidelberg Boardmaster enables industrial packaging producers to significantly reduce their operating costs. With its numerous benefits for customers, the Boardmaster also provides an attractive alternative for many users who have so far opted for VLF – very large format – sheetfed offset printing.”

The Boardmaster was developed completely from scratch at the Heidelberg competence center for high-volume flexo folding carton printing at the company’s Weiden site in Bavaria.

Each print deck has two print units. While one unit is busy with production, the second one is being readied for the next print job. Heidelberg says waste between jobs will be just 10 metres. Depending on the configuration, a machine availability of up to 90 per cent is possible in production.

The printing speed of up to 600 meters per minute, which corresponds to around 38,000 print sheets in format six per hour. Substrates with grammages of between 70 and 800gsm can be processed. The press comes in a range of web widths from 850mm, 1,020mm, 1,400mm to a maximum 1,650mm. The repeat length can be from 405mm to 1,070mm. Depending on the postpress concept (reel to reel, reel to sheeter, or reel to die cutter), it is possible to avoid losing any time during production.

Heidelberg has had high volume carton presses before, with the VLF sheetfed series, which is now discontinued. The Boardmaster will deliver treble the output of the VLF presses. The first beta Boardmaster is now installed, at a plant in the US.