Bobst Group and its partner Graphilabel have won the Innovation Award at the 2019 FlexoStars for the revolutionary BOBST THQ FlexoCloud printing technology. The Association Technique française de Flexographie (ATF Flexo) delivers awards, or FlexoStars, to the best flexographic print work in France. Five of Bobst’s customers also won awards in the competition.
In Toulouse on December 12, the ATF handed them the 2019 FlexoStars innovation award for the print work on ‘Lion Puzzle’, a complex graphic design visual reproduced on semi-coated EB flute corrugated board.
Awarded with a gold Star after its launch in 2017, the Très Haute Qualité (THQ) process developed by Graphilabel and Bobst Group offers a flexo post-printing solution exclusively for corrugated board. The technology can reproduce images of unparalleled print quality, and opens markets for flexographic printing that had until now been reserved for offset systems.
Due to the increased presence of counterfeit or pirated products in global trade (3% to 7% depending on the region), brand owners now seek protection. The colour separation algorithm in the BOBST THQ FlexoCloud process offers highly effective anti-counterfeiting printing. ‘Nanomessages’ invisible to the naked eye are reproduced to create a secure encryption solution that guarantees authentication and packaging traceability.
Recent innovations have enhanced BOBST THQ FlexoCloud technology. Its algorithm already covered 65% of the colour gamut in four-colour reproduction. Now the system is enhanced with a new Extended Colour Gamut (ECG) printing process. This feature makes it possible to reproduce up to 93% of Pantone shades using just seven colours.
With ECG, packaging manufacturers can use the same inks throughout a print run: operators can therefore sequence print jobs without cleaning printing blocks; setup times are faster, and the presses produce more. To top it off, the print quality is superior and more consistent than with the traditional flexographic process.
Bobst customers performed well in the 2019 FlexoStars ranking – five of the six awards for corrugated board print work went to brand customers. In the complex films, paper and aluminium categories, two gold and one bronze star were handed to converters that use Bobst machines.
