HP moves into packaging market

HP has announced a move into the packaging market, at its pre-drupa press conference in Tel Aviv.

Alon Bar-Shany, VP and general manager Indigo division, HP, commented, ‘Packaging is very healthy and growing fast. We see packaging as a very different market to any other. It is growing dramatically in China and Brazil and Latin America but also in mature markets because of more differentiation and consumers are still increasing their packaging spend. Packaging follows GDP and we think it will in the future, so our focus is on packaging.’

Labels and packaging takes 20 percent of the company’s business. Bar-Shany continued, ‘Today we see a big opportunity for flexible packaging and cartons. You need the workflow and finishing. At the moment you can’t do short runs with flexible packaging – you have to deal with lamination and high speed flexo/gravure machines.

‘Today, we have the ability of the WS6600 to handle synthetic materials. We have Enhanced Productivity mode which increases productivity by 33 percent by printing with four colors instead of three, by taking out the black. The print quality is still very good and better than our competition. It is already being used by our customers printing for top global brands’ said bar-Shany.

The company also introduced Secure Pack for pharma and security applications. The HP SmartStream labels and packaging print server is powered by EskoArtwork and include authorization management, print restrictions, proofing mode and automatic record keeping.

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