AMF Etiquetas opens Print Center

The Print Center is housed within AMF Etiquetas’ 6,000 sqm factory, but has a separate entrance and a dedicated team of 20 staff. It comprises a print area with digital printing, hot stamping and finishing equipment, an exhibition area and meeting rooms.

The initiative, two years in the planning, will allow clients to see – and take away with them – printed mock-ups of their labels, as well as to test designs on a wide range of materials. Substrates from all major international suppliers are available for trial.

The equipment housed in the Print Center can produce – within minutes – mock-ups which are 80 percent faithful to the final product.

The Print Center has a dedicated designer who can create artwork for clients from scratch, as well as counting on the support of external designers in a consultancy capacity.

The Print Center team can advise clients on international design trends, related to a particular country or end use sector, to help them create the best label for their product. Confidentiality is guaranteed.

‘We can help provide new ideas to clients and offer solutions for different kinds of applications,’ explains operations manager Sergio Gallo. ‘We are able to create mock-ups for every need, making the necessary production tweaks to arrive at the result desired for the final product.’

Growth

AMF was founded in 1945 as a forms printer by Alfredo Molina Flores. Today, it is a group of five companies: AMF Impresores, still dedicated to forms printing; AMF Medios Transaccionales, founded in 1980, for security printing, bank cards and checks; AMF Variable, founded in the mid-1980s, for mass communication; AMF Packaging, opened in the late 1990s, focused on the cosmetics, pharma and industrial markets; and AMF Etiquetas, founded in 2009, which prints labels for the wine and industrial markets.

The company remains a family-run business. Founder Alfredo Molina was succeeded by his son Carlos from 1971 to 2013. Today, AMF Etiquetas is run by Carlos’ son Juan Ignacio Molina and the other divisions by Juan Ignacio’s brother Cristobal Molina. The AMF Group today has sales of more than 60 million USD per annum.

According to Juan Ignacio Molina, general manager, AMF Etiquetas has experienced double-digit growth every year for the last four years.

‘Growth has mainly come from the wine market,’ he reveals. The company has around 50 vineyard clients, 10 of which are among the biggest in the country and represent some 80 percent of AMF Etiquetas’ production. ‘There is great variety in run lengths in the Chilean wine label market: from 1,000 labels to one million, and everything in between.’

In this competitive sector, quality demands are stringent. AMF Etiquetas’ largest vineyard client, Viña San Pedro, the second biggest wine group in Chile, has installed a new application line which is the fastest in the country: it labels 24,000 bottles an hour. ‘Our labels have to perform perfectly even at these extremely high speeds,’ says Molina.

Production

AMF Etiquetas produces 550-600 million labels a year, with production split 60-40 between sheet-fed and self-adhesive. Seventy percent of production is for the wine and liquor markets, and 30 percent for the food sector.

From early 2017, growth is also expected to come from new areas. The company recently installed a Nilpeter MO-4 with offset, flexo, screen, hot foil, embossing and die-cutting stations, and is now branching into beer labels and other beverages, including juices. CCU – a diversified beverage company which is the largest brewery in Chile and a partner of Heinekein and Anheuser-Busch – is a new client.

AMF Etiquetas’ factory, which houses 135 employees, also contains a Nilpeter FA3300 flexo press, a Xeikon 3300 – installed in 2014 – and two HP Indigo presses: a WS6600 and WS6800. Finishing of self-adhesive labels takes place on machines from AB Graphic, Cartes, Newfoil and a GM Mini,  in-line with the Xeikon press.

Sheet-fed offset printing is handled by equipment from Heidelberg, Ryobi and Komori; these labels are finished on machinery from Blumer, Kama, Polar and Steinemann. The company uses Esko pre-press and Kodak CTP platemaking equipment, with inspection throughout its production processes provided by AVT, Shark and Focusight.