Digital label and package printing are benefiting from a variety of global trends that are acting as catalysts for the transformation from analog to digital. There are many macro trends that are affecting digital printing for both packaging and labels.

Over the past several decades, the world has become a global marketplace with products being made, sold and distributed across borders. Various levels of democratisation and free market reforms, combined with the emergence of the middle class in heavily populated nations like India, China and Brazil having accelerated this trend.

In parallel, people in developed countries have demanded and received more and more product choices and versions. Walk down any supermarket aisle and you will be bombarded with a huge variety of product options, from locally produced microbrews and wines to gluten-free cereals and pastas, to name just a couple.

Today, both packaging and labels are important communication vehicles for brands and retailers who want to inform, persuade and engage customers. Whether through flashy, colorful graphics, detailed nutritional data or unique QR codes, printed packaging and labels are critically important in advertising and sales.

Ultimately, these macro factors drive an increase in product and packaging variety, leading to shorter production runs, a trend that is perfectly suited for the strengths of digital printing.

For the Indian market, Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, Delhi, a popular blogger on the subject and receipient of the R. Stanton Avery Global Achievement Award this year, said in 2015 “For label printing in India, Digital printing has to wait”. In 2017 he explains “Digital Printing in India – the journey has begun”. Today he is of the opinion “Digital printing for labels in India is a fast-emerging trend. No company in this segment is complete without having a facility of digital printing”.

Digital printing has truly arrived!!!!

To see this continuing growth in developments of technologies and applications for digital printing in labels let us meet and explore at the forthcoming Labelexpo India.

Happy reading.

Veerendra Malik