Steady growth in offset, gravure and flexo — Uteco, W&H, Comexi, Rotomec, Titan, Mark Andy and Gallus installs

Moreover two wide web flexos have been installed in Daman — an 8-colour Primaflex at Glory, and an 8-colour Comexi at Amartara-ICM.

Greenfield Flexible Packaging Plant — Tuflex at Palej
Tuflex India, a division of Parry Enterprises of the Chennai-based US$ 2.4 billion Murugappa Group (engineering, abrasives, polymer nets, knitted fabrics, sugar, fertilisers & chemicals, farming & plantations, nutraceuticals, insurance and financial services), has commissioned a greenfield state-of-the-art flexible packaging plant at Palej, near Vadodara in Gujarat (Western India) in October 2008. The plant includes facilities for blown film production, coextrusion coating, rotogravure printing, lamination, slitting & rewinding and pouch-making.

Set up in 1985, Tuflex (formaly known as Netlon India) manufactures a wide range of polymer mesh products, knitted fabrics, garden products, geotechnical substrates and net based packaging besides mosquito-proofing and agro-shading. Their quality systems are already certified under ISO 9001:2008 standards and they are now working on ISO 22000 (HACCP) certification. They decided to leverage their knowledge and expertise in polymers by diversifying into flexible packaging laminates and pouches catering primarily to end-use segments like food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, lubricants and chemicals.

Keeping in mind the Indian market requirements and the predominance of rotogravure as the preferred printing process for wide-web conversion, they have installed a RS 4003 Rotomec gravure press supplied by the Bobst Group. They have also installed a Titan SR8 twin shaft cantilever slitter/rewinder from Bobst that can run at speeds up to 700 meters/minute.

Domestic label market shows continued strong growth

Prabhakar Print installs two Mark Andy’s in a year
Prabhakar Print supplies labels to the premium beverage, pharma and the vegetable seed industry. The company bought its first Mark Andy 2200 10-inch wide label press as recently as the 2006 India Label Show in New Delhi. The second narrow web label press, a Mark Andy 2200L 13-inch wide machine was installed in November 2008. The 2200 series are new servo design presses capable of running unsupported films from 25 micron on up. Prabhakar Print’s 2200L like all presses in the 2200 series are fully field upgradeable.

Both the narrow web label presses at Prabhakar Print have 8 print units with UV curing. Atre ???????? said he was happy with the results of his first Mark Andy and therefore decided to go in for the second. Prabhakar’s infrastructure includes four hot foil-stamping machines from Heidelberg and two fully automatic paper cutting machines from Polar and Perfecta. and a hydraulic die cutting machine. In their offset printing department the company has two new Komori presses — a 4-colour and a single colour. Another Mark Andy 2200 13-inch wide press was installed in February 2009 at WebTech in Okhla, New Delhi.

Nutech Packaging installs Gallus
The narrow web flexo press market that stalled slight around the beginning of the year has picked up from February and March onwards. Apart from installations of a 10-colour MPS at Daman and a 12-colour Aquaflex at Sai Packaging in Faridabad the past two years have been excellent for Nilpeter with a number of installations of used and brand new presses.

This past period has also been excellent for Gallus in the subcontinent and especially in India. Avery Denison has installed a Gallus for its Bangladesh operations acquired from Paxair and also for its label operations in Bangalore. Nutech Packaging has also installed an 8-colour Gallus at its Faridabad plant.
Nutech’s Ashok Shroff says that he bought the Gallus both because label volumes were increasing and competitveness demands value addition capability in-line. He also said that although he was able to produce labels both on sheetfed and web offset, a key consideration was that modern labels require flexo capabilities and that high-speed label applicators require finished labels in roll form.

The current market for label presses remains hot with several label printers looking at high volume premium export opportunities afforded by the large multinational FMCG companies with strong operations in India.