Labels printed at Skanem Durham.
With 16 production plants across 10 countries, Skanem is one of Europe’s largest suppliers of self-adhesive labels.
In the UK, it has three sites located in Liverpool, Cardiff and Durham. The latter is the smallest of the three, yet is very efficient and prides itself on its strong customer focused approach. With a diverse range of customers consisting of both blue chip companies and independent leading brands, the Durham plant, established in 2003, specialises in the production of self-adhesive labels for the automotive, household and food markets.
Two years ago Simon Burge, operational manager at Skanem Durham, took the opportunity to review and improve the ink supply. This involved an intense research and testing period, which culminated in the company switching to Fujifilm’s UVivid Flexo JD inks. Mr Burge explained, ‘Our main goal was to enhance our quality standards to guarantee consistency on different kinds of applications. Our colleagues from Skanem Cardiff have been working with Fujifilm for a number of years, and suggested we see what it had to offer.’
Simon Burge: ‘Since we have been working with Fujifilm, we have achieved top quality and excellent colour matching along the entire workflow.’
The two companies worked closely together to trial the inks, which included carrying out fingerprint tests. Skanem decided that the flexo package, which comprises UVivid Flexo JD inks, High Opacity UVivid Flexo JD inks, Supernova White and a number of varnishes from its UVivid RV range, was the best choice.
UVivid Flexo JD is a UV curing flexo ink system for narrow web printers, which has been developed to give high performance across a wide range of UV flexo machinery, complementary press products and substrates. It is suitable for a wide range of applications, including self-adhesive labels, sachets and pouches, unsupported films, low shrink sleeves and in-mould labels, and is available as Pantone mixing, process or metallic colours.
UVivid Flexo Supernova White is an ultra opaque flexo printable ink that can replace rotary screen white ink, and allows fine text and opaque solids to be combined on the same plate.
Mr Burge said, ‘We are committed to keeping a tight rein on all variables which might affect the print process, and ink is a crucial product. Our colour discrepancy tolerance is minimal. Ink must be consistent in shade and flow properties from batch to batch: to fail in this area would put a stop to the whole process which would mean a time consuming and expensive delay in production. Since we have been working with Fujifilm, we have achieved top quality and excellent colour matching along the entire workflow. Because of this, we decided to move to Fujifilm as a majority supplier.’
Skanem Durham.
