Siegwerk India launches sustainable inks, UniNATURE, at IndiaCorr Expo

Siegwerk India, a supplier of printing inks for packaging applications, launched its new generation of sustainable inks – UniNATURE – for the Indian market at the IndiaCorr Expo 2022 held in Mumbai from 8-10 October 2022. 

The UniNATURE product range is said to be formulated with renewable and natural components, providing an environment-friendly alternative to conventional inks without impacting the recyclability of paper and board packaging, thereby taking a step towards reducing the microplastics that can be found in inks.

“ We are replacing the resin with bio-recyclable contents, which makes the inks more sustainable. These inks will help reduce carbon footprint by 20-70% depending on the finished goods. These inks are targeted at flexo printers who are using regular water-based inks,” Raja Ranga Bupathi K, national sales head – P&B, Siegwerk India, told Packaging South Asia.

The UniNATURE inks will be manufactured at Siegwerk India’s plant in Bhiwadi, around 70 kms from Delhi, in the National Capital Region. The blending will take place at all the company’s blending centers across India. 

Ramakrishna Karanth, CEO, Siegwerk India sub-continent, said, “As we are venturing into a resource-preservative future, our vision at Siegwerk India is to work towards sustainable development. Siegwerk’s consistent efforts for a better tomorrow resulted in the formulation of the UniNATURE ink series made from renewable and natural sources, for a greener future keeping in mind the 3Ss– Safety, Sustainability, and Satisfaction –  of the consumer.”

Siegwerk’s new sustainable water-based ink range comes along with excellent ink performance and color strengths, offering similar levels of performance and properties as current water-based technologies, the company said. 

According to the company, user tests have shown improved dot shape, comparable dot gain, high resolubility, and easy cleaning on the press, which means it can be easily exchanged with the current products without the need to change equipment, processes, or color matches. 

Furthermore, high printing speeds on presses, on both coated and uncoated papers, can be achieved with UniNATURE. The new inks and coatings series is applicable for many paper and board applications, including corrugated board boxes, trays, displays, fast-food packaging, sacks and bags, as well as cups and wraps. It supports various printing applications whilst meeting the highest market and regulatory standards, the company said.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.

The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.

Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.

As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.

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