This article was first published in the September 2021 issue of Australian Printer, authored by Kurz A/NZ managing director Stephen Pratt

Kurz is fortunate, given the current landscape, that the marketplace for metalised transfer coatings is strong at present. We’ve got high demand in wine and beverage, FMCG and the foods sectors, which are driving the growth.

The print and visual communications market also seems to be split between big and small players – the mid to large printers and converters seem to be doing quite well, while the smaller family-run businesses seem to be struggling especially with the lockdowns that have taken away the foot traffic that they rely on to get business through.

As a result of COVID, more people are shopping online, which means businesses now have a reason to make a switch when it comes to brand packaging. It has had to evolve to gain some recognition and eye appeal on a screen, whereas previously it was set up to grab eye attention on the shelf. 

This has resulted in the need for more embellishment and foils to add some ‘bling’ and to make the packaging or labels stand out. The development of newer equipment has enabled savings for printers and converters, especially, to add labels or foils onto a package which has caused additional uptake.

In terms of trends, the wine and beverages market is seeing the most amount of growth. The wine industry is driven by embellished labels as it’s a very rich and busy sector. There are so many brands to choose from and the packaging is often a deciding factor in which product gets chosen. The same goes for other beverages – we’re seeing an uptake of foil onto craft beers, for example, alongside new bespoke whiskeys, gins and spirits.

Brands are also trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors by embossing or debossing or adding foil onto their packages to enrich it and give it a luxury effect. If you look at Lindt chocolate, as an example, the brand does foiling, embossing and embellishment on its packaging and it uses a number of players in the market to get the final product. The packaging looks like it’s of the highest quality.

But with digitisation having a big effect on the print industry, many businesses are moving towards digital presses. And the next big marketplace is digital finishing. At Kurz, we play in digital embellishment – we have digital foil and digital metal.

The goal of these solutions is to provide embellishing solutions for digital printing houses rather than traditional ones. It enables those businesses to work with cut sheet, or continuous, depending on their market or equipment and with all of the advantages of digital.

Kurz offers the DM Jetliner, which is designed for labels and flexibles. We also offer the DM Smartliner and Uniliner, designed for the cut sheet marketspace. We will soon be releasing a new product, the Maxliner, in the coming months. The DM Jetliner, in particular, has a range of functionalities. One of those is its ability to interface directly into a HP 7000 series or above digital print engine to allow those customers to print personalised and embellished in one pass. 

Kurz is a specialist in this marketplace and has been for the best part of 125 years. We aim to add value to our customers’ businesses, which in turn, benefits their customers. Digital metal is our own product and we’re using all of our own knowledge to provide the best possible finish, embellishment and print registration at high speeds.

Foiling and embellishing is a specialised service and if it doesn’t offer a print service provider with any major opportunity, they shouldn’t get into it. Instead, they should look to partner with trade houses that specialise in it to add extra value to their customer base, where they need it, instead of having to invest in equipment, knowledge and training.  

For those that are in the business of offering foiling and embellishment, what is incumbent on them is for them to look at the new technologies that are launching, especially in the digital space, to boost their capabilities.

At Kurz, we also aim to deliver value to businesses through our online Webshop that we introduced last year, our sustainability initiatives including our ECOFIN product, and our recently launched RECOSYS recycling process for PET, which is available in Germany and Europe for now.

The next three to five years will have a much greater capacity for recycling, as recycling and sustainability is expected to drive further trends in packaging. So, products need to be created in a way that it is accepted in the marketplace and is recyclable.

There’s no doubt that the growth of embellishment is assured. That marketplace is growing, so the biggest drivers in this space is in efficiency, recycling and sustainability now and into the future.

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