Kien Label B.V., a leading Dutch producer of complex multi-layer labels and part of the Asteria Group, has further strengthened its production capabilities with the addition of an MPS EFS-430 flexo press, installed and running since January of this year. This marks the company’s fifth MPS press and reflects its continued commitment to innovation, efficiency, and sustainability in label production, enhancing its sustainability efforts with the latest LED drying technology.  

The press is also equipped with MPSConnect, allowing for real-time monitoring and performance optimization. “We’re excited to introduce this advanced 8-color press to our operations,” says Renier Simons, manager of operations at Kien Label.

Irish eyes are smiling

There are not many optimistic books about Irish history. Wars, famines, and emigration have been the themes. Even independence from Britain in 1921 did not lift the Irish economy out of the doldrums. The change came with membership of the European Union in 1973. Ireland, along with other “incoming” countries like Spain and Portugal, used their EU subsidies wisely, and Ireland soon rose to top of the class. Britain’s departure from the EU left the Republic of Ireland as the Union’s only English-speaking country, and Foreign Direct Investment has continued to pour in. 

Among the many investors has been Asteria, a label converter in Belgium. Label World, based in Dublin, is Asteria’s third acquisition in the Emerald Isle, alongside Label Craft, bought in 2023, and LabelTech, acquired last year. This latest member of the Asteria Group uses flexo and digital printing to make extended content labels, booklets, leaflets and cartons for the pharmaceutical, food, and beverage markets. 

Founded in Belgium in 1985, Asteria, a family-owned group, has expanded over the years through acquisitions, and today it has over 30 production sites in 22 European countries.

No future for leaflets?

Apart from labels, one of Asteria’s products is the pharmaceutical leaflet, the thing that in Europe every pharma product must have (and which nobody reads). Generally ignored by the patient, the pharma leaflet is big bread-and-butter business for many converting plants. 

But now comes the crunch. The bureaucrats of the European Commission, those mysterious boogeymen whom we all love to hate, want to do away with the paper leaflet and replace it – you’ve guessed – with the QR code. This announcement has opened up a far-reaching technical, regulatory, and industrial debate. At a time when Brussels is pushing for the complete digitization of medical information, this revolution threatens to reshuffle the cards for many players in the pharma, printing, and packaging sectors. In this project, the printed leaflet must be out, replaced by a QR code on the packaging. The QR code clearly has lots of arguments in its favor – real-time updating, multilingual translation, and even audio versions. 

However, integrating it onto boxes and bottles requires a new packaging design, a new organization of data flows, and management of the secure digital link. For packaging manufacturers and printers, this means upgrading to variable data digital printing tools and learning to work with pharmaceutical companies’ IT infrastructures. 

From October 1 of this year, as part of a trial run supervised by France’s state-run Medical Security Agency (ANSM), the packaging of 93 prescription drugs and over 400 hospital drugs will have to show a QR code. In the hospital sector, so it is planned, the paper leaflet will disappear completely. 

The advantages of this change must be apparent today to any college-educated person of under 60. Trouble is, one heck of a lot of patients don’t fall into that category. So, must this brilliant metamorphosis wait until the last digitally-deprived pensioners go to their graves? Or, are we looking at yet another way for brilliant bureaucrats to bemuse the suspicious citizen?

Make the most of that (imported) wine

From what we read in the press, this might be Americans’ last season to enjoy European wines at an affordable price. This has not deterred France’s Philaposte to launch itself into secure wine labels. The three key words are security, interactivity, and esthetics. 

Let’s start with the ink, which will be exclusive to Philaposte’s QR codes: then the antifraud, which is using technology from Prooftag. This can encode not only the labels but the closures, to foil those little devils who try to “relabel” expensive and empty wine bottles with cheap plonk. As for the aesthetics, the Philaposte labels will use AI and a QR code to “interact directly with the customer,” giving them information about the wine and how to serve it. Traceability will be via a choice of technologies by which authentication can be quickly and easily obtained at any stage, from the vintner to the drinker.

Blue skies for Azur Adhésif

Built on the industrial wasteland left by the defunct Papeteries de Pont-de-Claix paper mill, closed in 2008, the new Azur site, which is also the group’s new headquarters, is twice as big as the
previous plant. 

Azur Adhésif, founded in 2001, is the historic base of the Avek group, which today comprises five production sites and a graphic design studio. Azur, which employs 35 people, has annual sales of 5.5 million euros, which makes it the jewel in the crown of the Avek Group (total sales of €8.9 million) to which it now belongs.

Aztec also moves house

Despite its South American name, Aztec Label is based in that very English town of Kidderminster. Like Azur, Aztec also recently moved to new quarters with a new workshop adjacent to its original site. It has just installed a new Nilpeter FB-3300 flexo press – its 10th from the same Danish supplier. 

Described by Aztec as, “a great competitive advantage,” the mutual understanding between itself and Nilpeter has followed the company through generational change and site relocations, to say nothing of press installations.

“We’ve worked with Nilpeter for many years, and the relationship has always been built on trust and shared values,” says company owner Colin Le Gresley. 

Adieu to SMAG

One of France’s last remaining narrow web machinery manufacturers went into receivership at the end of 2024. SMAG (aka SRAMAG) is an old-established family business founded by the present CEO’s father in 1980, and it specialized in finishing equipment. This final act comes less than two years after SMAG’s owner, Stéphane Rateau, sold a controlling share in the business to Rhyguan,
a Chinese competitor. 

What went wrong? Rhyguan’s strategy remains wrapped in oriental mist, but it is a fair conjecture to say that Britain’s A B Graphic has indirectly had something to do with SMAG’s demise. The UK company with manufacturing subsidiaries worldwide outperformed its French competitor, described as “too big to be small, too small to be big.” One company bidding to acquire SMAG’s assets is Codimag.  For 40 years, Codimag has designed, manufactured, and sold printing presses with high added-value at its facilities in Bondoufle, France. Today, it is the world leader in intermittent waterless offset
label printing.  

Codimag’s technology, called “ Aniflo,” is designed to combine offset quality with flexo simplicity and digital flexibility. It features an offset unit, with offset plates and a simple anilox delivery system that brings a uniform ink amount across the web. 

For its part, SMAG Graphique designs printing and finishing equipment (hot foil, diecutting, silk-screening, laminating…), and in 2023 it had sales of 9 million euros, almost half of which
were exported. 

Over to Codimag, where CEO Benoit Demol, like his opposite number with SMAG/SRAMAG, is the son of the company’s founder. Both companies are based in the Paris region and almost within shouting distance. Rumor has it that SMAG’s ex-CEO Stéphane Rateau does not take kindly to the idea of his life’s work being sold off to his rival down the road. Which shows the truth of the old saying that two of a trade never agree.

Increased costs mean more bad times ahead

The European Union exports around 1.6 million tons of paper and board to the US and imports almost 900,000 tons of American pulp, according to figures published by the European Federation of Paper Industries. 

The threatened tit-for-tat tariffs could, therefore, increase the cost of raw materials for European manufacturers while making their exports less competitive. Labels will be affected indirectly, as, for example,  European pharmaceutical laboratories find their US exports reduced. Predictably, the European Commission has launched a consultation to determine which American products could be subject to retaliatory measures. 

The aim, according to the Commission, will be to react “proportionately,” while preserving the interests of the European paper and packaging industries.

…but Interpack feels bullish

Messe Düsseldorf expects around 2,800 exhibitors from all over the world at Interpack 2026, due to open in May 2026. Show director Thomas Dohse says the exhibition grounds are once again already fully booked. “Full halls, vigorous presentations, real innovations: the world’s packaging industry can’t wait for next year’s show to start,” he says. 

For the label sector, the main interest will be for the whole field of labeling equipment, in particular combined with security printing. If the visitor quantity (and quality) at Interpack 2026 lives up to Mr. Dohse’s expectations, it will be one in the eye for those who said the big European shows were on the way out.