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Enhancing gravure printing with luxury finishes enabled by BOBST oneECG

The packaging industry is evolving fast, with brand owners demanding speed, sustainability, and eye-catching designs. BOBST is at the forefront of this transformation with its oneECG technology for gravure printing. This method includes the ability to print metallic effects with standard process inks, unlocking creative possibilities while reducing costs, waste and complexity.

Since its introduction in 2019, oneECG (Extended Color Gamut) for gravure has proven its value by enabling converters to standardize production with a fixed set of inks. This eliminates the need for frequent color changes and costly spot inks, delivering faster setups, less waste, and long-term color consistency. Converters using oneECG are now better equipped to handle today’s market pressures, such as shorter runs, multiple SKUs, and rapid design changes, without sacrificing quality.

Furthermore, oneECG is capable of producing metallic shades – such as gold, silver, and bronze in various hues – adding luxury appeal to flexible packaging. Traditionally, achieving metallic effects requires several separate spot inks for each hue, adding significant expense and workflow complexity. With oneECG, converters can reproduce a wide range of metallic colors using a standardized ink set, removing design limitations and saving cost in the process.

Using oneECG for metallics has a profound impact on production, creating a seamless and more efficient workflow. Instead of changing cylinders between each job and washing away expensive metallic inks, these shimmering shades can be matched digitally in prepress and printed with the inks already loaded on press. This means faster delivery of exceptional quality flexible packaging.

Sustainability is another key driver. Conventional metallic inks often pose challenges for recycling due to the high load of metallic pigments and requires a cylinder for each color. By reducing reliance on specialty inks and the number of colors needed, oneECG lightens the environmental load, cutting solvent use, lowering VOC emissions, and decreasing chemical waste.

A market pioneer and flagship user is Poplast Flexible Packaging in Italy which recognized the huge potential of using oneECG for metallics at an early stage. By integrating metallics into its existing oneECG workflow, the company is leading the way in innovation with their very own Pop7+1 by offering greater flexibility, faster turnaround, and premium-looking packaging to its customers at competitive price levels.

However, oneECG is more than just a cost-saving tool; it represents a smarter, more sustainable path forward for gravure. By combining advanced automation, digitalization, and now metallic effects, BOBST is safeguarding the competitiveness of gravure against alternative print technologies.

As Davide Garavaglia, General Manager and Head of Product Lines Gravure, Vacuum Coating & Laminating, emphasizes: “Innovation, such as offering the ability to reproduce metallic colors with greater ease, less waste and cost effectively, is crucial for the future of gravure.”
 

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