Impackt attains excellence in luxury and short-run markets

Self-adhesive label converter Impackt Etiquettes has been enjoying rapid growth in recent years, supplying a growing customer base of brand-owners in the food, beverage, alcoholic beverages, logistics and pharmaceutical sectors. In 2013, it relocated to new purpose-built 1,800sqm premises at a technology park in Hannelles-lez-Habourdin, on the western outskirts of Lille. The company succeeded in providing innovative label products, most notably including ‘peel and read’ labels, with two 6-color flexo presses – one from MPS, the other from Rotatek – with in-line finishing equipment from AB Graphic, Rotoflex and Serame.

Impackt Etiquettes recognized that digital printing, with its simplified workflow, was essential for responding to ‘just-in-time’ delivery requests at short notice, and for supplying ‘artisan’ businesses targeting niche markets cost-effectively. Furthermore, the company preferred a UV inkjet system, with its superior opacity on plastic substrates, which would enable them to offer transparent labels to luxury goods manufacturers.

Michel Potelle, Impackt Etiquettes’ managing director, comments: ‘After seeing the trials and samples, it was clear that the DSI press, with its 4,000 meter roll capacity, could deliver both the high quality and productivity, especially on transparent substrates. We were impressed with the high specification and robust, industrial build that gave the stability at fast speeds, and excellent results on transparent films.’

Impackt’s DSI press features the standard CMYK process colors, plus the optional orange and violet, to achieve 90 percent of the Pantone color gamut, and opaque white. The press’s other standard features include intermittent LED-pinning between printing stations, to assure a stable laydown of inks at speeds of up to 35m/min (115ft/m), and a chiller to prevent plastic materials from deforming. It also includes a flexo coating unit, cold foiling and semi-rotary die-cutter in-line.