Altrif Label adds Xeikon CX500

Altrif Label chief operating officer, Dion Goderie, stated that his company can meet every demand since Altrif Label joined St-Luc Labels and Packaging Group.

Goderie commented: ‘We can provide our customers with self-adhesive labels, booklets, multilayer labels, folding boxes, shrink films and flexible packaging. We can handle any assignment in the label and packaging field. Together with St-Luc, we offer offset, flexo, screen printing and digital printing. Our digital printing presses make us even more versatile. With our team of experts, we can produce short runs and short delivery time. We even print flexible packaging and shrink sleeves digitally. And we never compromise on quality.’

Altrif Labels produces labels for brand owners, among which several multinational corporations. The pharmaceutical industry is a large customer. Goderie continued: ‘We see a clear increase in the demand for digital print. Our customers are interested in good quality at a fair price and are not so much concerned about the techniques we use to make our products. Digital print however, gives us the tools we need to meet the demand for short runs and fast delivery.’

Market developments and the availability of new technology has radically changed the demand for labels and packaging. Today, a job of 10.000 labels is considered as a short run production. You can have 20 variants of the same brand on one label format, noted Goderie. ‘It’s even possible to print unique personalized labels at full speed production. The demand for variable print is growing immensely. This requires in-house pre-press and years of experience.’

Altrif Label has a long-standing relationship with Xeikon. In 1998, the company was the first user in Benelux of a digital Xeikon web press. Altrif Label is now the first beta tester of the Xeikon CX500.

‘We need to stay ahead of the market, so it’s always good to be the first to try a machine like this,’ said Goderie. ‘The Xeikon CX500 is as fast as the Xeikon CX3, which we also use. But on top of the full rotary printing speed of 30m/min, the Xeikon CX500 has a unique web width of up to 520mm.

‘The Cheetah technology is great for printing on unconventional substrates. When it comes to opaque white, the dry toner technique beats liquid toner every time. Some of our customers are part of the chemical industry, so we do a lot of production on synthetic substrates. Especially in that case dry toner gives us the quality we need.’