AVT wins L&L Innovation Award

AVT has won the 2026 Labels and Labeling Innovation Award for its Helios Varnish Inspection Module, announced at Loupe Americas 2026 on September 15, marking the company's third L&L Innovation Award win.

The module addresses one of label and flexible packaging production's most persistent inspection challenges: the reliable detection of clear varnish and coating defects at production speed. Conventional inspection systems cannot reliably detect transparent coatings, and the industry's existing workarounds — manual press stops or adding UV additives and optical brighteners to varnish — change formulations, add cost and complexity and can still leave defects undetected until the finished product reaches the customer.

The patented Helios Varnish Inspection Module inspects clear varnish and coating layers directly across matte, gloss and tactile coatings, alongside print, barcode, variable data and color measurement in a single platform at full production speed. It is a retrofittable upgrade for existing Helios systems, and one in three Helios systems now ships with the module included. Customers report productivity gains of around 30 percent from reduced reprints, waste, downtime and quality complaints.

The judging panel highlighted the technology's ability to address a genuine production problem supported by field installations. 'When you are running a press at high speeds, it is difficult to see that varnish,' said Shawn Oetjen, director of operational excellence at Meyers and a member of the FTA executive board. 'I have experienced reruns because it was missed, so from a converting standpoint, this is impactful.'

'We took on a challenge the industry had lived with for years — reliably inspecting clear varnish at production speed — and solved it without asking converters to change their varnish, their process or their existing Helios investment,' said Guy Yogev, vice president of product and marketing at AVT. 'For us, that is what meaningful innovation is about: solving a real production challenge in a way that works on the pressroom floor.'