Digital Printing in Corrugated Packaging Heats Up: Preprint, Post-Print and Litho Lamination Advance as Global Carton Giants Expand Their Bets

Corrugated cartons and display-stand packaging have consistently pioneered digital printing adoption, with penetration far ahead of folding cartons—a larger market but one constrained by more barriers.

Experts offer various explanations, yet the core factors remain run length, delivery time, supply chain, quality expectations, and management mindset and flexibility.

Digital printing can replace offset or flexo in preprint or post-print, but each route demands a very different setup. Preprint covers only the top liner before lamination to the corrugated web, using roll-to-roll inkjet with a relatively simple unwind-tension-rewind transport. Post-print prints directly onto corrugated board and requires heavy-duty sheet feeding and delivery to handle large, thick, heavy yet relatively soft board. Litho lamination sits in between: paper is printed first and then laminated to corrugated board. Offset on high-gloss paper is common for premium retail boxes and display packaging, hence the term offset litho lamination.

One major advantage of ultra-wide inkjet presses is their ability to handle sheet formats far larger than those of even the biggest offset machines.

Cartons for very large retail goods—such as big TVs or lawn mowers—often need two or more offset sheets laminated together to cover the full area, while a single wide-format digital press can do the job.

The earliest post-print inkjet systems were UV flatbed presses with multi-pass printheads and manual loading or heavy-duty automation, capable of printing directly on corrugated board.

These presses generally perform well, delivering offset-like quality on sheets larger than any offset format. However, UV ink restrictions around food packaging and multi-pass printhead limitations keep UV flatbed throughput relatively low. Even the fast Inca Digital Onset XHS series can produce only 283 full-size boards per hour on 3.2 x 1.6 m sheets.

Over the past decade, high-speed single-pass inkjet presses with more stable feeders have advanced rapidly, processing thousands of boards per hour—far beyond UV flatbed throughput.

Corrugated packaging giants are stepping onto the digital printing track one after another.

In December 2019, Swanline Group CEO Nick Kirby spoke at the Smithers Digital Print for Packaging conference—one of the last in-person events before COVID-19 lockdowns. Swanline Group includes Swanline Print, a trade printer serving carton packaging manufacturers and packaging companies, and Swanline Paper & Board, which produces corrugated packaging or displays through CorrBoard, its joint venture with McLaren Packaging.

Kirby noted that digital printing on corrugated board can be costly, but new opportunities are emerging. Combining corrugated cartons with digital printing strengthens structural design capabilities and opens more market opportunities, especially for jobs that traditional printing could not handle.

Swanline Print uses multi-pass HP Scitex FB10000 inkjet presses for digital corrugated printing. They work well for its current orders, but Kirby also commented on faster single-pass digital presses.

He said single-pass sheetfed digital presses match offset quality, are more competitive on short-to-medium runs, and offer broad versatility.

Speeds can reach 6,000 m²/h, ten times that of multi-pass presses, but costs remain high. The machines have a large footprint, and their throughput also demands substantial space for storing corrugated board, pushing overall cost higher.

Guy Thompson, strategic account manager for HP’s corrugated packaging digital printing systems, said:

Corrugated packaging customers actually performed well during the pandemic because much of the work was food-related and demand surged; e-commerce also used more corrugated boxes. Overall, the corrugated packaging business is growing, and the digital trend will only strengthen.

He pointed out that for packaging converters—whether folding cartons, corrugated boxes or flexible packaging—printing is only a relatively small part of the process. They also consider corrugated board production, die-cutting, folder-gluing and assembly. The level of automation, automatic feeders and conveyors can surprise commercial printers, not to mention the many MIS and other software systems involved.

One reason to invest in digital printing equipment is to remove bottlenecks encountered as a business grows.

Thompson said digital label printing first appealed to small companies and short runs for craft beer and jam; similarly, digital printing fits corrugated display packaging for such products.

Yet some of the largest brands have also found digital printing’s flexibility highly useful for their many sub-brands.

These sub-brands may use similar packaging for different markets, or different color schemes for different consumers, such as toasters and kettles. Brands can even change designs immediately for a specific upcoming event.

In the five years since drupa 2016, the landscape of corrugated digital press manufacturers and joint ventures has shifted considerably. Bobst, for example, briefly entered the corrugated digital printing market before exiting, and plans to re-enter future projects through its Mouvent inkjet business.

Sun Automation began making its CorrStream water-based ink high-speed press in 2013 but ultimately returned to its core business of corrugated paper feeders. Last year, it transferred the inkjet project to Domino Printing Sciences. Domino calls its corrugated digital press X630i, offering up to 75 m/min over a 3,000 x 1,345 mm print area. So far, one X630i has been sold to Independent II in Kentucky, USA.

Spain’s Barberán entered corrugated packaging as early as 2013 with its Jetmaster digital UV inkjet. Current models offer six colors (CMYK, orange and green) and variable data support. Barberán export manager Dennis van Ijzer said:

To date, Barberán has supplied 25 production lines worldwide. The largest market is the United States, where customers use the machine specifically to convert jobs previously produced by offset litho lamination to digital printing—mostly display packaging, along with some industrial product packaging. In Europe, customers such as Smurfit Kappa use it only for industrial packaging and are partly replacing offset, but mainly converting small batches of up to 2,500–3,000 sheets to digital printing because running costs are lower and the process is faster.

At drupa 2016, KBA ambitiously announced a joint venture with Xerox to develop a hybrid inkjet folding carton press called VariJet 106. Soon after, KBA formed a joint venture with Durst in 2019. VariJet 106 now uses Durst inkjet technology. However, the joint venture inherited two different corrugated single-pass press projects: Durst’s SPC130 and KBA’s CorruJet. SPC130 targets mid-to-high volume users, while CorruJet addresses very high volume, high-resolution requirements.

Robert Stabler leads the new KBA-Durst joint venture, which includes the post-print corrugated division and the folding carton division.

KBA and HP addressed post-print through their T1190 collaboration, but that is not part of the KBA-Durst joint venture. It was noted that digitalization is highly effective for supply chain models running from converter to customer.

EFI entered corrugated digital printing at drupa 2016 with its 1.8-meter, six-color Nozomi C18000, and saw unexpected sales growth.

It was initially configured for carton converters and sold to customers such as Spain’s Hinojosa—now with four Nozomi machines and believed to have the world’s largest direct printing capacity—and DS Smith Iberia for this type of work. However, in February EFI released a modified 1.6-meter, seven-color version tailored to display packaging, with deliveries due later this year.

Ken Hanulec, EFI vice president of global corporate marketing, said: “It is surprising how much interest display packaging customers have shown in this press. We have been able to respond to that market demand with a highly efficient solution dedicated to production. Done well, single-pass technology has the potential to transform every vertical print segment it touches and give our customers unprecedented new opportunities.”

UK user Del... (the original source is too long and is excerpted here.)