Global Label Award winners announced

Former Finat president Kurt Walker was presented with the R. Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony held at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels.

Kur Walker (R) receives R.Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award from Georges Gravanis, president Avery Dennison Materials Group

Sponsored by Avery Dennison, the award recognizes an individual who has made a key contribution to the label industry over a minimum of 25 years. Previous recipients include Suzanne Zaccone of GSI Technologies, Tomas Rink of Ritrama, RotoMetrics’ Steve Lee, Helmut Schreiner, Nilpeter's Lars Eriksen and FLEXcon's Neil McDonough.

HP Indigo won the Award for Innovation for companies with more than 300 employees, sponsored by Flint Group Narrow Web, for its HP SmartStream Mosaic software. Mosaic generates infinite design variations from a ‘seed’ pattern using an innovative graphics algorithm and was first used for a Coca-Cola promotion in Israel.

The Award for Innovation for companies with up to 300 employees, also sponsored by Flint Group Narrow Web, went jointly to GEW and Lake Image Systems. GEW impressed the judges with its energy efficient RHINO electronic power supply. Lake Image Systems was honored for its MaxScan inspection system, which has 600dpi resolution and virtually no angular variation, eliminating the need for additional rollers, re-designed web paths or complex optical assemblies.

Lintec won the Sustainability Award, sponsored by Xeikon, for its KP5000 label face material, which uses 80 percent post-consumer recycled PET while maintaining the performance characteristics of virgin PET.

Judges for this year's awards, under the chairmanship of Mike Fairley, were: Thomas Hagmaier, president of Finat; Andy Thomas, group managing editor of Labels & Labeling; Armin Karl Geiger, editor of NarrowWebTech; Steve Katz, editor of Label & Narrow Web and Anthony White, label industry consultant.

Also announced at the Gala dinner, attended by over 500 guests, were the winners of the 'Best of the Best' World Label awards.

Andy Thomas

  • Strategic director