Packaging - Is it a Shrinking Market?
By Tom Kerchiss, RK Print Coat Instruments
Climate change concerns, political, economic and social uncertainties – Brexit, trade wars and real wars; no matter how you look at it we live in an age that seems to generate more than its fair share of angst.
No wonder then that so many people of all ages and from all walks of life are endeavouring to at least bring some order from the chaos that surrounds them by taking responsibility for their personal health and wellbeing, with feeling good and looking good high on the agenda. Witness the growth in gym membership and the investment made by many leading brand owners in the development and marketing of products that are often referred to in the United States and Canada as nutraceuticals and elsewhere as wellbeing or health care products. Some forecast that the term nutraceuticals will become more widely adopted as it will enable brand owners and retailers alike to bring together many items that are currently hard to categorise and which at present are found in different aisles in the supermarket, causing consumer confusion and detrimentally affecting sales.
Nutraceuticals are a broad-based range of compounds, formulae, ingredients and products that in some way may help to support the functions of the body, keep it healthy, delay aging processes or are used to treat medical conditions, either in tandem with GP prescribed medicine or as a perceived natural alternative. For example, glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate supplements are widely used for their anti-inflammatory properties to alleviate the symptoms of osteoarthritis and are available in the nutraceutical aisle.
Also available are herbal teas with their antioxidant properties as well as extract of green tea and compounds that are believed to be effective in weight loss. However, conventional slimming products that are classed as foods do not come under the heading of nutraceuticals and are sold in the appropriate retail aisle. Nutraceuticals include many of the items that are sometimes sold over the counter (OTC) in chemists, drugstores and pharmacies such as botanicals, probiotics, amino acids, vitamins and allergy medication, etc. Items such as beans, pulses, lentils and many other dried food stuffs are generally not regarded as nutraceutical items and typically are still sold in health food stores, though the concept of nutraceuticals is open to interpretation and there are no hard or fast rules on what can be sold where and how. Energy or sports drinks do seem to be amongst the many items that sometimes find their way into the nutraceutical section or are marketed nearby.
Currently the global market for nutraceutical products, the vitamins, minerals and supplements, etc is according to some marketing gurus to be worth in the region of $US 200 billion with China and other Asian countries, markets traditionally associated with self- medication and herbal/natural treatments leading the way. However, the US, France, Brazil, Germany and the UK are becoming important and profitable markets.
Turning our attention from the products to the packaging that characterises this increasingly vibrant sector its worth noting that the packaging technologist, the converter, printer and brand owners must ensure that the information contained on the surface of the pack, the container and on the label affixed to a bottle or other medium is printed clearly and with information that is truthful and exact. There can be no room for error in terms of dosage and, where relevant, ingredients and possible side effects must be succinctly laid out. Nutraceutical products are not subject to the same degree of regulatory and compliance procedures as pharmaceuticals when bringing a new product to market – but that’s not to say that this will always be the case.
Packaging is critical not only in terms of containing and protecting an item but also because at the point of decision making on pack information, graphics and colour are all that the consumer has to go on. The marketer needs to pull more than a few white rabbits out of the hat in order to attract and hold the interest of the browsing consumer as nutraceuticals are not regarded as staple items and they cannot in all honesty be looked upon as luxury items. For these reasons packaging and labelling must work hard; eye catching graphics, vibrant colours and innovative use of design element accessories such as hot stamping, embossing and holographic/metallic foils can contribute to product differentiation. What else? Shrink sleeves are a design and tamper proof option, finding favour in areas such as beverage applications and for bottled products such as the exotically flavoured and vitamin enhanced plant beverages and energy boosting shots.
The 360 degree all round graphic potential allows a marketer to convey more information and maybe even a story line that can be difficult to achieve using paper board, carton or another material. It also enables the designer free reign with regard to the use of eye- popping colour and stunning graphics, which of course just needs a resourceful and capable packaging converter to turn into reality. Shrink type materials offer unparalleled shape conformability and can be used for the packaging of multipacks.
Wrap around labels often referred to as roll on, shrink on differ in that they are roll formed. The leading edge and trailing edge are glue applied or welded with solvent and then heat is used to shrink the label. Many shrink applications were printed by gravure but advancements in flexo press technology and in the essential components, together with lower origination costs make flexo a good option.
Producing a shrink-wrapped product with minimal distortion and to high colour and graphic standards is a team effort. Designers must manage carefully the placement of graphics and the converter that prints must ensure that colour does not deviate from the customer agreed requirements. Colour and other print elements need to be constantly assessed to make certain that inconsistencies if and when they occur can be rectified quickly. Colour communication or proofing devices such as the FlexiProof or K Printing Proofer enable quality control assessments to be undertaken at every stage of the process and by each of the supply chain providers including: printers, converters, ink suppliers, substrate producers and designers. At each stage results can be documented for traceability and to help in producing a consistent product.
The FlexiProof and K Printing Proofer, etc., can be effectively used for other label and on pack applications. Peel-back labels and booklet labels provide manufacturers with the opportunity to produce a relatively uncrowded front of label with legislative and ingredient information on the reverse side, perhaps in different languages. Decorative finishing possibilities including colour can make for a striking effect.
The K Printing Proofer is a bench top device producing high quality proofs quickly using gravure, gravure-offset or flexographic inks. When fitted with the gravure head and with RK Print Coat Instruments K-Lam laminating accessories wet or dry laminating samples can be produced and assessed.
Colour matching and determining printability can be time consuming and often problematic. Colour associated issues can arise for a variety of reasons. Brand owners don’t always rely on a single packaging medium, and even those that do use a variety of other means to get the brand message across and sell products quickly.
For this reason, every time that a carefully crafted design is reproduced in printed form there is the potential for variation and a risk that colour fidelity will be undermined and that brand appearance will appear differently not only from run to run but across different packaging formats. The Flexiproof 100, FlexiProof UV and FlexiProof LED UV allow users to meet colour targets quickly and accurately and with minimal waste. Printability issues such as gloss, rub and chemical resistance, flexibility and durability can be determined and materials, inks, etc, trialled without having to take a production machine out of the commercial workflow. Inks and substrates can be assessed to see how they interact and the FlexiProof UV and LED UV versions equipped with miniaturised UV systems enable print and curing to be undertaken seamlessly. This enables pin holing and other blemishes that can be difficult or impossible to pick up using a conventional conveyor system to be detected quickly and with minimal waste and excessive production machine downtime.
RK Print Coat Instruments Ltd
Litlington, Royston, Hertfordshire SG8 0QZ
www.rkprint.com sales@rkprint.com
Source: RK Print Coat Instruments Ltd
