Global Industry Label Awards honor three and Chinese label pioneer

Professor Tan Junqiao was honored with the R Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor Tan, the first Chinese winner, is founder and honorary chairman of the China Label Sub Association of the Printing Equipment Industries Association of China (PEIAC). During his 36-year career, Professor Tan has been instrumental in introducing flexo printing to China – convincing government agencies to reduce import taxes on flexo presses and, more recently, digital. Professor Tan also has consulted for many global label converters and suppliers entering China.

‘This award is not only glory for myself, but also affirmation for the Chinese packaging and label printing industry. Inheriting the foresight and pioneering spirit of R Stanton Avery, I’ll continue to devote myself to the cause of China's packaging and labeling,’ Tan said during his acceptance speech.

He continued: ‘I hope the whole industry can unite together to make further developments for not only the Chinese label industry, but for the whole international sector. I will continue to make contributions to the Chinese label industry for the rest of my life.’

The R Stanton Avery Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual who has made a ‘substantial and key contribution’ to the promotion and growth of the label industry over a minimum of 25 years. The award is sponsored by Avery Dennison.

‘Spending most of his life contributing to the Chinese label printing industry, Professor Tan is highly regarded and respected as the founder and motivator of the country’s label and packaging printing sectors,’ said Jean Lee, vice chairman of the label printing sub-association of PEIAC. ‘As the first Chinese winner of this award, he deserves it.’

Innovation and sustainability

Also at the Label Industry Global Awards, three were honored in areas of innovation and sustainability. Herma, AIM and ebeam Technologies were announced as the winners at the event.

The award for innovation for companies with more than 300 employees was presented to Herma for its superTack (63Vst). The judges singled out the manufacturer of self-adhesive label application systems, saying that product innovation has enabled Herma to create the world’s first resin-free adhesive for labels that require an extremely strong initial tack. The product is designed for moist, fatty, dirty or dusty surfaces, and extending it beyond the food sector. By dispensing with resin, Herma’s adhesive reaches the approval for dry, moist and fatty foods and comes closer to the zero migration benchmark.

Other finalists for this category were Aurika, Esko, Klöckner Pentaplast, Lintec and Multi- Color Corporation.

The award for innovation for companies with up to 300 employees was awarded to AIM, the trade association for the automatic identification industry. For nearly half a century, AIM has provided unbiased information, educational resources and standards to providers and users of these technologies. AIM took the award for Ultracode, a process innovation that enables the automatic capture of data by any digital color camera or smartphone. The process utilizes the first international standard 2D color barcode – Ultracode – which is printable by any RGB or CMYK process color, inkjet or toner technology. The code, together with advanced data compaction schemes and URLs, encodes data in less than half the area of a QR code using the same modular size.

Other finalists in this category were Bobst, Constantia Flexibles Labels Division/Source Labels, GEW and PowerForward. Both innovation awards were sponsored by Flint Group.

Lastly, ebeam Technologies won the Award for Sustainability, sponsored by Labels & Labeling magazine, for its Compact curing unit. The award was given for the company’s development of a compact electron beam curing system for narrow web presses which now makes low-energy, photo-initiator-free, curing accessible for label and package printing production. Using ½ to 1/10 of the energy required by heat, steam, chemical, microwave or UV processes, ebeam systems are compact, vacuum-sealed, zero maintenance and have high longevity.

Other finalists in this category were Avery Dennison and Source Labels. The sustainability award was sponsored by Labels & Labeling.

The judges for the awards’ 14^th edition, serving under chairman Mike Fairley, were: Thomas Hagmaier, past-president of Finat; Craig Moreland, chairman of TLMI; Rosina Obermayer, editor of NarrowWebTech magazine and Andy Thomas, strategic director of Labelexpo Global Series.

In addition to dinner with more than 500 industry representatives, the evening featured live music and a performance by Divine Dancers.

Labels & Labeling China Editor Yolanda Wang contributed to this article