Ahmedabad-based Vishal Containers, which offers a full complement of paperboard and flexible packaging solutions, has just signed for its first imported flexible packaging press – a Comexi F2 Hybrid CI wide web flexo 8-color press for producing a sophisticated variety of sustainable packaging materials. This is the first flexo printing machine purchased by Vishal Containers.
The Comexi F2 MP hybrid is designed to print using solvent- and water-based as well as EB (electronic beam) curable inks, a technology which Comexi has pioneered. The press design combines the features of the Comexi F2 MP, which meets the printing needs of longer run flexible packaging sector for the retail and wholesale segments and the Comexi F2 WB environmentally sustainable solution for medium and long runs using water-based inks. Water-based flexo is especially suited for a variety of consumer products in the food, pharma, healthcare, wellness and personal hygiene segments in the sense that it avoids the use of the most harmful chemicals and fits in well with the move to more recyclable structures, inks and coatings. The EB curing inks are well suited for several special applications.
The 30-years established Vishal Containers, located in an industrial area near Ahmedabad, provides total packaging solutions under one roof that include flexible packaging for consumer products including food and confectionery. The new advanced technology CI flexo hybrid press with water-based and EB ink curing flexibility represents a step forward for Vishal, which has so far used several gravure presses for flexibles in its drive toward sustainability. For Comexi too, the high tech press represents a breakthrough in the Indian market and the region. In this sense, Vishal Patel, director of Vishal Containers, expresses his satisfaction at his company being “pioneers in our country and betting on a sustainable technology that will bring added value to our products.”
“We are proud to be able to install a machine with these characteristics in India,” explains Jordi Puig, technical director of the Flexo Business Unit of Comexi, stating that Vishal becomes, “the first Indian client that has this technology, and the sixth in the world.” Fran Perez, India and Middle East area manager, adds, “As a leading company of flexible packaging machinery, we are really satisfied to offer this disruptive technology which will be a turning point in the area.”
The importance of sustainability for Comexi
The environment has become a major concern of the Government of India with a commitment to eliminating plastics for single use within next years. Comexi is no stranger to this issue and has made sustainability one of its major bets both in the present and for the future. The company has carried out a pioneering initiative to integrate for the first time, environmental impact studies in its core business with the aim to know and communicate at all times these impacts throughout the value chain of the manufacture of a flexographic printing product. Through the implementation of eco-design in their products, a circular economy strategy is established to provide its customers with products that are respectful of the environment throughout their life cycle.
