Ahead of the pack

The first narrow web flexo label converter in Lebanon, Label Plus has expanded into a successful business – and new press investments are on the way. Andy Thomas reports

Label Plus started up in 1999 after company owner and managing director Haytham Sinno completed a long quest for knowledge about pressure-sensitive label converting equipment. ‘I saw an opportunity in this market, but I did not know what sort of machinery to buy. Then we met Elmar Zanforlin, from Comco, who persuaded us to buy a Comco Cadet. I took his advice and became the first narrow web flexo printer in Lebanon.’  

It was a tough market for a start-up label converter: ‘The local market was very small then – buyers preferred sheets because there was not much automatic labeling equipment in the country. This started to change through the 1990s, but slowly,’ says Sinno. 

At Labelexpo Europe in Brussels in 2006, with Comco now a part of Mark Andy, Sinno opted for a Mark Andy 2200 as his next press, followed last year with the UV flexo 2200XL machine, all supplied by Mark Andy’s Lebanese agent Dynagraph. This 6-color press is equipped with BST Powerscope inspection equipment, cold foil, lamination and turnbar.  

In addition, Label Plus runs a Mark Andy 830, two Labelmen PW180 rotary letterpress machines, and foil stamping and finishing equipment from Newfoil and Shiki. 

Avery Dennison is the main substrate supplier for Label Plus, and like other printers in this region dealing with European-based suppliers, Haytham Sinno has to cope with lead times of 4-5 weeks. Materials used are overwhelmingly PS papers, including thermal papers, with currently little use of film. Rotary dies are supplied by Rotometrics. 

To print to the highest quality, Label Plus uses digital flexo plates, which are made by a specialized repro house. ‘I have seen our printing quality improve immensely using the latest thin CTP plates,’ says Sinno. 

The main export markets for Label Plus – and where the company is seeing the biggest growth in orders – are Dubai and Saudi Arabia, in the food, beverage, detergent and security seals sectors. There is also some work for Lebanese wine producers who export their products to North America and Europe.   

Another significant growth market is Africa, and particularly Nigeria, where the Lebanese form the biggest class of factory owners and many local cosmetics brands are owned by Lebanese citizens. It is believed that there are 100,000 Lebanese working in Nigeria alone. 

Haytham Sinno says his main competition comes from Syrian label printers. ‘They sell labels for cheap prices because they use second grade material and locally made machinery.’ 

Label Plus is currently enjoying overall growth of 10 percent and plans to install a fourth Mark Andy machine in August 2010. It recently complemented its rewinder force with a new Prati to cope with increased label volumes. 

Up to the mid-1970s Lebanon was considered the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, and most regional business was transacted through the country. Today Lebanese are the principal business class in large parts of the Middle East and Africa and the country is seeing the start of its own narrow web converting sector.

Pictured: an aerial view over Beirut

Agency pushes flexography into Middle East

Originally established in Beirut in the 1950s, Dynagraph is celebrating a 25 year partnership with Mark Andy and now provides engineering support throughout the Middle East, writes Andy Thomas.

Dynagraph is one of the most influential package printing machinery agencies in the Middle East, laying claim to introducing flexography to the region through its 30 year partnership with DuPont and 25 years as Mark Andy’s agent.

As with all the best agencies, Dynagraph’s success comes down to heavy investment in service and support – essential for converters starting out for the first time in the narrow web converting business. Of the company’s 104 employees, one half are service engineers. Dynagraph engineers carry out all regional installations of manroland sheetfed offset presses while it supports all Mark Andy presses.

The company was formed in 1952 in Beirut to sell letterpress consumables and grew its business rapidly throughout the Gulf region. A Syrian office was added shortly after followed by offices in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates  and Kuwait. The first packaging-related flexo installations took place in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s.

‘The labels market in this region remains small, but around a year ago, things started changing, and now we’re starting to see some real growth,’ remarks Antoine El Kara vice president of Dynagraph. ‘This is particularly the case in the shrink sleeve label market.’

Looking at the main package printing markets, he cites Saudi Arabia as the biggest with a consumption of 100-113kg per capita, while a country like Syria comes in at just 40kg per capita. ‘These figures show there is a lot of room for growth,’ he says.

El Kara sees particularly exciting growth prospects in Egypt – ‘there are big changes on the way there’ – and North-Central Africa, where there is a big, and wealthy Lebanese population driving business development. Iran and Iraq are also markets on the move.

El Kara says that in Lebanon there are six major PS label converters, and Mark Andy claims the lion’s share with four installations. In addition there are up to 25 sheetfed offset companies in the country which would eventually express an interest to convert some wet glue labels as part of their broader commercial print offerings. ‘But more end users here are now installing automatic labelers, so the prospects for the narrow web industry are good.’

This article was published in L&L issue 4, 2010