Focus: plastic bottle surface screen printing OR in-mold labeling (3)

Surface Printing Printing Cost and Equipment Investment

The cost of surface printing for each color is related to screen life, ink, operator skill, printing speed, printing pattern complexity, and printing area. In addition, if the plastic bottles need to be sanded, the scrap rate in this process will slightly increase the cost. Table 2 shows an example of the cost of a plastic bottle surface screen print. Due to the different technical conditions of each manufacturer, the data in the table is for reference only.
Surface screen printing equipment investment is low, the threshold is low. One-time equipment investment and printing materials type,
Bottle volume and other factors. If printing PE, PP materials, need to be equipped with flame processing equipment. If the PET material is printed, it may not be equipped with a flame treatment device. UV inks are very popular in curved screen printing, so UV curing devices are generally required. A bottle with a printing volume of less than 300ml will invest a set of flame processing equipment, curved surface printing machines, and UV curing machines, which will generally not exceed 100,000 yuan.

In-mold Label Printing Processing Cost and Equipment Investment

The time taken for in-mold labels to enter the country is not long, the loss rate during the printing process is high, and the in-mold label materials are still dependent on imports, and the equipment investment is also relatively expensive. These factors result in the high cost of current in-mold label printing and processing. . Of course, this also shows from another angle that there is still room for reduction in the printing and processing costs of in-mold labels in the domestic market.

Huaxin (Foshan) Color Printing Co., Ltd. is an old branded packaging and label printing company and has 3 years of history in printing in-mold labels. The general manager of the company, Wu Wu, said: “The various losses of in-mold labels in the printing process add up to sometimes reach 30%. We hope to work closely with the upstream and downstream companies, if we can reduce the loss rate to less than 20%, then The overall cost is definitely lower than the sticker."

Mr. Fu Qiang of Avery (China) Co., Ltd. said: "The price of in-mold label materials is cheaper than transparent plastic adhesive materials, and slightly more expensive than paper-based adhesive materials. After the labels in molds are printed, they need to be cleaned and static-free. , manual inspection and packaging processes, but the elimination of the labeling process, no longer need a special labeling machine and labeling operators."

The price of the in-mold label of the company Praia France is about 5-6 yuan per square meter. Mr. Luo Bingye firmly believes that the cost of in-mold label printing processing still has room for decline in China. He said: “In the United States, the rate of rejecting in-mold label printing processing is very low, and the cost of in-mold labels is lower than that of self-adhesive labels. However, in China, the scrap rate during label printing is high, which is mainly due to Dust, static electricity, die cutting and improper packaging during printing, for example, in the process of die cutting, because the die cutter is dull and not sharp, the small burrs on the trimming affect the fit of the label and the plastic bottle. Standards lead to waste products. In-mold labeling is still a new technology in China, and as the technology becomes more sophisticated, the overall cost will drop when the domestic in-mold label scrap rate drops to or closes that of the United States.

Chen Biao, a leader in S&T Technologies, understands the cost of in-mold label printing and curved screen printing. He said: "The use of plastic bottles with in-mold labels has a large volume and a large printing area, and the cost of in-mold labels will be slightly higher. Specifically, for plastic bottles with a volume of less than 400 ml, the four-color printed in-mold label ratio curve network The price of India is 10% lower. For plastic bottles with a volume greater than 400ml, the cost of in-mold labels is 10% higher than screen printing."

As in-mold labeling technology matures, some companies that wait and see are also eager to try. For the investment in equipment, they also expressed their opinions.

Mr. Zhang Zhongjun believes that companies must first have stable customer resources and can maintain stable demand. Second, we need to analyze in-mold labeling's ROI in detail. What is the expected value of the investment return, how long the payback period is, and how much the profit rate can be reached? After a thorough analysis of feasibility studies, rational decisions are made to avoid blindly following the trend.

Chen, general manager of the new technology, said that the plastic container company must apply the in-mold labeling production line. First, there must be a hollow blow molding machine, and secondly, the in-mold labeling equipment (in-mold labeling robot) should be configured. At present, the price of in-mold labeling robots is approximately 100,000 to 200,000 yuan. A typical configuration of medium-sized plastic container processing enterprises requires at least six robots. Therefore, a one-time investment in equipment for an in-mold labeling line requires about one million yuan.

(to be continued)