Siegwerk Expands, Opens New Production Facility for Inkjet Inks

Siegwerk has expanded its Technical Center in Annemasse, France, with a new production facility for inkjet inks. The investment follows the construction of a dedicated inkjet laboratory last year that was built to extend the company’s R&D capabilities in this area. Siegwerk is committed to further drive the development of inkjet inks that meet all printing process functionality and efficiency requirements and address the specific challenges of the labels and packaging segments.
 
The site in Annemasse has 275 employees and counts as Siegwerk’s European leading plant for water-based printing inks and varnishes. The Center of Excellence produces more than 25,000 tons of printing ink per year. Over the last three years the company invested €3 million to specifically build up its development, production and testing capacities in the inkjet technology.
 
“After opening our designated inkjet laboratory last year, we now opened our first designated inkjet production facility in Annemasse – all in line with our vision to become the leading packaging ink provider worldwide,” said Herbert Forker, CEO at Siegwerk. “Going forward we will invest additional €2 million in new equipment for the inkjet ink technology over the next five years. Annemasse will be our driving force for future inkjet ink solutions.”
 
Siegwerk has already invested nearly €11 million over the last 12 years to build up a sustainable Technical Center in France with high competitiveness in Europe. Next to the investment in the inkjet laboratory, Siegwerk has also opened a brand-new Blending Center for the production of water-based inks in 2016 to strengthen its portfolio as a full-range provider for packaging printers.
 
“Annemasse always was our innovation hub. It’s the cradle of our ‘Global Innovation Network,’ a global in-house research network, which works on the development of eco-friendly inks with consistent performance, as well as new ink technologies and product packaging innovations for the future,” added Forker.
 
“Overall, we see a growing demand for application-driven ink systems and especially for inkjet ink customization,” said Matthieu Carnie, business development manager at Siegwerk. “From our perspective, the most promising technologies are UV
 inkjet, suitable for narrow web printing on thick material such as labels and direct-to-pack, and water-based inkjet, suitable for single pass large width printing on corrugated and flexible packaging. Both technologies can also be suitable for printing on folding carton.”
 
The company’s inkjet offering today focusses on UV technology. With Sicura NutriJet, Siegwerk provides an inkjet ink series for sensitive food and pharma packaging that works with different inkjet printing head technologies. With Sicura Jet low-odor, the company offers the only non-CMR UV-inkjet inks that are designed for printing labels for household, hygiene and industrial packaging. All inkjet inks comply with relevant legislations, and are suitable for a wide range of label applications, like, for example self-adhesive labels for cosmetics, wet-glue labels for food and beverages, direct printing on 3D-packaging objects, blister packaging as well as aluminum lids for food products. Water-based inkjet inks for packaging applications are currently under development and will follow at a later stage.
 

From left, Jens Adrio, head of corporate development; Veronique Danois, president of Siegwerk France; CEO Herbert Forker; and Matthieu Carni, business development manager; open the new production facility for inkjet inks in Annemasse, France. (Source: Siegwerk)