Miscellaneous

Security and Tamper Evident Products

The worldwide problem of product counterfeiting and tampering is growing every year. Security labelling covers several market areas including Tamper Evidence, Brand Protection and Anti-theft.

The need for Tamper Evident labels and seals is rapidly increasing for a whole range of products. Tamper Evident labels clearly show, at all points of the supply chain, that the product has retained its integrity and has not been tampered with or contaminated. Examples include void labels, frangible papers and ultra-destructible materials.

Brand Protection products can take many forms and are designed to positively identify the labelled item as genuine. Brand protection products can be divided into two basic groups. Overt types are designed to give an obvious and visible sign of authenticity. Examples are holograms, fluorescent fibres and selectively metallized films. Covert types are designed to hold security features that only the brand owner is aware of. Examples are Taggants, invisible fluorescent fibres and luminescent coatings for labels.

Anti-theft labels are widely used in the retail environment to prevent pilferage at the point of sale. Examples include electromagnetic and radio frequency labels.

Digital Labelling

Digital printing is based on technology that prints directly from the data of a digital file using electrophotographic imaging.

The main driving forces are:

profitable short to medium runs no films, no plates fast turnaround high-quality prints no waste wide range of printing substrates

Typical areas where digital printing is used today are food, pharmaceutical, industrial chemical and special product labelling, multi-language print jobs and personalization.

HP Indigo and Xeikon

Xeikon and Indigo are the main digital printing press manufacturers in the world today. Both companies were founded in the late 1980s and introduced their first digital colour printing machines in 1993.

Xeikon technology is based on LED electrophotography. This technique requires that the printing substrate has optimal and uniform resistivity, which can only be achieved through correct and uniform moisture content and good material formation.
Indigo uses digital offset technology with liquid toners called ElectroInks. This technology sets high requirements on the printing substrate in order to obtain good ink anchorage. UPM Raflatac's Indigo products have a special topcoat to ensure good print quality.