column: 100% packaging
Packaging of the year 2009 in finale
page 5
The last day of May was the submission deadline for the 15th edition of the national competition for the best packaging solutions Packaging of the Year 2009. The organizers are presently proceeding individual entries for the jury, which will judge the individual entries in detail on the 24th and 25th June 2009 in the SYBA Packaging institute. For the third time in a row, Jana Lukešová presides over the jury. The results of the evaluation will be announced by the end of June 2009. The award giving will take place in November.
column: Current topic: Trade fairs
25th Embaxprint
page 8
The international trade fair of packaging, print and marketing communication EmbaxPrint celebrated two anniversaries this year. Its 25th edition took place 40 years after the first session. The trade fair enters this year’s edition under the difficult conditions of the current economic situation. The scope and structure of the trade fair was also influenced by the important factor of breakthrough in print as the area is undergoing tumultuous developments of digital technologies, which are gaining over offset printing.
What was Embaxprint 2009 like?
page 10
What was this year’s EmbaxPrint like from the point of view of exhibitors, what novelties they came to present at the trade fair, what were their expectations and how do they evaluate it? Representatives of selected companies provided Svet baleni their evaluations and answered the following questionnaire:
1. How does the current world financial crisis influence the situation in your company?
2. You took part in the EmbaxPrint trade fair in Brno, unlike many other companies which turned the participation down from budgetary and other reasons. Why?
3. Can you mention novelties in your field which are being resented here? Will you take part in any other trade fairs this year abroad?
4. How do you evaluate this year’s EmbaxPrint?
Not only the awarded and nominated
page 12
The international trade fair of packaging, print and marketing communication EmbaxPrint, which took place from the 18th to the 22nd of May in Brno Trade fairs, confirmed that the global crisis did not keep clear of the printing and packaging industries. This fact was reflected in the exhibitors’ lower interest in the pavilions. The 25th international trade fair EmbaxPrint was visited by the total of 345 exhibitors from 22 countries. Their exhibitions took the space of 12 thousand square meters. Among the five items awarded with the prestigious Golden Embax award were, unlike in the previous editions, also two companies manufacturing packaging machinery.
Trade fair packaging and materials in plastics
page 14
At this year’s jubilee Embax, packaging and packaging materials were not absent (although they were represented in a smaller scale than in the past editions). It is primarily manufacturers of plastics who have recently been presenting their goods at both local and international trade fairs. This trend was confirmed also by the 25th edition of the EmbaxPrint trade fair in Brno.
Print technologies at EmbaxPrint
page 16
This year’s EmbaxPrint was more modest in terms of the numbers of exhibitors and their more restrained stands, making the trade fair approximately one third smaller than two years ago. Only a few of the presented solutions were absolute novelties. Most solutions had been already shown at previous international trade fairs or individual company shows. Yet, there were exceptions, e.g. the world premiere of the compact automatic book sewing machine Aster EL with the output of 9000 strokes per hour by the Italian manufacturer Maccanotecnika, presented by the Sigloch-Kolbus company, or of the new model of laminator Foliant by Formica.
page 18
For three April days, the Prague’s Trade fair grounds Letňany hosted a grouping of four technical trade fairs – FOR INDUSTRY, FOR SURFACE, FOR WASTE and FOR 3P. For over 10 thousand visitors the trade fairs prepared topical information from the presented fields. The FOR 3P trade fair itself was participated in by 77 exhibitors not only from the Czech Republic, but also from Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Serbia, Sweden or Ukraine. The trade fairs showcased modern technologies of tightly-knit industrial fields, which was witnessed not only by the visitors, but also by the judging committees of the competitions for the best showpieces GRAND PRIX.
Inspiring The Art of Packaging
page 19
Italian design is renowned, but Dutch design, particularly packaging design, is no outsider either. The Embassy of the Netherlands held a conference, participants of which could see this in their own eyes. The conference was an accompanying event to the FOR3P trade fair of food industry and packaging technologies and the conference speakers included both Dutch
experts and representatives of Czech design.
The organizer composed a well-balanced program encompassing two major branches of packaging design: construction design and graphic design.
column: Market analysis
Beverage packaging and the environment
page 20
A complex LCA analysis to evaluate the impact of usage of individual kinds of beverage packaging on the environment is yet to be conducted in the Czech Republic. Therefore, the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic (MZP) in 2007 commissioned a study Comparison of environmental impact of beverage packaging by the LCA method (SP/II/2f1/16/07). The study is financed through the Ministry’s program for research and development and its main goal is to describe the real environmental impacts connected to the manufacturing, usage, collection and exploitation of beverage packaging in the Czech Republic. The beverage packaging under analysis included plastic packaging (PET), metal packaging (AL), mixed materials (beverage cardboard), and glass packaging. The analysis in question evaluates packaging of non-alcoholic beverages and beer, which are filled, distributed and sold in the Czech Republic, and the market share of which formed at least 95% in 2007, i.e. the analysis does not examine minority types of packaging, such as glass jars of 025 l, mixed packaging of 0.33l, aluminium bottles or beverage sacks.
page 22
Based on an exclusive analysis published in April, which was participated in by 6200 European households, three quarters of European consumers claim that they prefer glass over other food and beverage packaging materials. This large-scale analysis, one of the most complex to have been conducted in the area of packaging industry, was carried out in twelve European countries including the Czech Republic by the European Container Glass Federation (FEVE).
column: Main topic: Packaging of beverages and liquids
Flexible bag-in-box
page 24
Although the bag-in-box type (BiB) of packaging has been in use over a half of century, it was not a common commodity on the local market until quite recently. At present, the production volume and possibility of usage of BiBs have been increasing. The fully functional BiB packaging often makes up for an interesting alternative to canisters, bottles or containers. Furthermore, the packaging is not objected to by environmentalists. Parts of the packaging can be very easily separated for following recycling. Actually, there are two types of packaging – a flexible sac with a vent and a cardboard box.
Variability of caps, valves and materials
page 27
Caps (plugs) differ in material and shape. The best and most expensive are cork plugs made of lump cork. These guarantee high flexibility and durability. Cork plugs pressed from more components or from ground cork are harder and are used mostly for the simpler of wines (with the exception of cork plugs for champagne, which are always ground only from pulp). Cork of the highest quality (the least porous with the least defects) is used to manufacture plugs for wines ripening in directly the bottle. Cork of a lesser quality are used in less expensive wines. Cork grains are glued together into a solid matter, which resists even high pressure of sparkling wines.
page 31
How to keep pace with world trends in packaging systems was the topic of conversations with Zdeňek Bukovjan, manager of sales and marketing from Mlékárna Valašské Meziříčí, and with Josef Horký, manager of the company Elopak for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Tubes are conquering the world of beverages
page 33
The use of tubes has its firm position in the history of packaging. The original tube was neither aluminium nor laminated, but leaden and tin. What has also been changing is the packed goods. For a long time, tubes were associated primarily with the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical industries. The past fifty years witnessed the mass usage of tubes in the food-processing sector. And although the tube is associated with gels or paste-like suspensions, it is now more frequently appearing in a form of beverage packaging.
page 35
Since the autumn of 2008, the global economic crisis has changed the behaviour of European consumers. When passing the shelves, they reach out only to the items of basic everyday need and they more and more frequently pushed their loaded trolleys on the parking lots of discount chains… Yet the advance of the crisis has not halted the development on the markets with beverages, which continuously manifest a hunger for innovations. The main trend is the development of the segment of the so-called sensitive products (beverages manufactured without the use of conservatives, energy drinks, ice teas, flavoured waters, dairy drinks etc.). This group of products globally represents already 34% of non-alcoholic market and manifests the highest annual increases in sales. Advertising of the product key players are more and more frequently appearing in prime times of all television channels.
page 36
Beer is nowadays sold in a variety of pack
aging. If we do no take barrel beer into account, the greatest demand is still for bottled beer. The drink is also sold in tins and PET bottles. While beer in tins has found its supporters in the Czech Republic, a vast majority of beer consumers reject plastic. With the arrival of summer, demand for large quantity packaging and easy transportability increase.
Maxibottle opened up a new segment of packaging
page 36
The group Heineken Czech Republic entered the Czech market in May with a new trend in the segment of beer packaging. Maxibottle with the capacity of 1,5l, into which the brands Zlatopramen and Starobrno are filled, is intended for the Czech retail market with packed beer. We asked the sales manager Jiří Daňek about details of its material and design. 
New labels for Velkopopovický Kozel
page 38
Bottles, tins and multipacks with the Velkopopovický Kozel beer went through a major change of packaging. Total of 54 packaging materials for the Czech Republic and abroad were innovated. The new design of labels and other packaging elements imitates wood and other natural materials.
column: Technologies
Grid cylinders in packaging flexoprint
page 39
Printing of packaging is nowadays done mostly by flexoprint: in the USA it is up to 90% of overall production, in Europe it is 40 – 50% and the shares are constantly growing. Flexoprint is, unlike offset, a direct print technique, i.e. the printed motive is carried from the printing form directly onto the printed material. The transfer of thin flexoprint dye from the cartridge onto the print form is done by grid (anilox) cylinders. These cylinders being new development trends were given a conference in April, called Grid cylinders – manufacturing, control and cleaning.
Column: Packaging and design
Design for brand packaging
page 41
Andy Warhol once said: „Good business is the best art.“ Considering the subject of one of his most famous paintings, a series of Campbell soup cans, we could deduce that good branding is also an art. Packaging has a critical role in that art by moving beyond the visual appeal of a label into making an emotional connection with consumers, so that they connect with a brand.
In fact, appealing to the five senses and beyond can be achieved through today’s packaging technology. By addressing a consumer’s sensual experience with a product, brand owners can support a brand at initial sale all the way through to household use.
The power of „limbic packaging“
page 43
The European Association of Carton and Cartonboard manufacturers ProCarton in collaboration with the consulting company Gruppe Nymhenburg Consult issued guidelines for the manufacturing of packaging using the knowledge of the human brain BrainPacs (the power of “limbic packaging”). Just ten years ago the prevalent theory was that our decision making in favour for a particular product takes place basically rationally. However, since than it was proven that 70 – 80% of our decisions are taken subconsciously.