The flexography winner was the Signature Range Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper wrapper entered and printed by Aperio Group Flexipac Branston Street, for ultimate client Progressive Enterprises Ltd.
Senior flexography judge Leo Caunter said the entry stood out. They tried to create a representation of metal in the wrapping. It is a laminate reverse printed on about 20-micron polypropylene, the black would have gone down first and the white last and then it was laminated to the metallised substrate. The substrate gives you that 'metal' effect in the finish.
"The other feature about his job was that to my knowledge it achieved what only the people in the label industry have done before but not wide-web flexo, and that is print in a 150-line screen. Normally high-quality flexo is about 130-line screen.
"This company [Aperio] is always open to a challenge. Gravure is in 175- or 180-line screen so it is always a challenge for a flexo printer to try to 'knock off' the gravure standards and they are getting very close to it.
"New technology with photopolymer plates and the control they give the printer, allowing them to get the dots to stand up in such a fine print, and to achieve finer vignettes, is helping improve standards.
"Overall I give this entry a big plus for having a go and raising the bar higher in flexography than we have seen before."
The Signature Range Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper wrapper was designed by Apropos, and was printed on Matt BOPP / Metalised BOPP stock supplied by Teras Sentosa – Indonesia / Shorko – Australia.
It was printed in eight colours on a ten-colour W & H Novoflex press with inks supplied by Coates New Zealand.
