DS Smith receives prestigious European Awards for exceptional quality in flexography

On Jul 4, 2016 400

Dr. Dieter Niederstadt, Asahi Photoproducts; Thomas Müller, DS Smith; Dr. David Galton, Asahi Photoproducts, with the awards

Asahi Photoproducts, one of the pioneers in flexographic photopolymer plate development, has congratulated its customer, the DS Smith plant in Fulda, for receiving two prestigious awards from the FTA Europe Diamond Awards.

DS Smith, a leading display and packaging supplier, was recognised with a diamond first in the Super Wide Web Flexo Print on Paper category and also Best in Show due to the printing quality for its pre-printed liners produced for Henkell & Co. Sektkellerei KG. The inaugural FTA Europe Diamond Awards ceremony was held at the Hyatt Hotel in Düsselsdorf on June 2, 2016 during the drupa exhibition.

The FTA Diamond Awards recognise companies that have been Gold Award winners in their respective countries. DS Smith had achieved gold in a category of the EFIA UK awards in March and was then put forward to participate in the FTA Awards.

“We submitted printing samples for pre-printed liner; these images were printed in very high quality that compares favourably with conventional offset-printed packaging,” said Steffen Blankenburg, print production manager at the DS Smith plant in Fulda.

In producing the packaging, DS Smith strove to achieve a close match to the brilliance normally achieved with offset printing, but using fixed colour palette four-colour flexography.

“The challenge was to reach high brilliance comparable to offset printing. We were able to do this through a combination of the prepress expertise of our well qualified employees and the quality enabled by using Asahi’s AFP-TOP plates with Pinning Technology for Clean Transfer.” added Jan Brandtner, plant manager at DS Smith Pre-Press Services.

More than 200 like-minded individuals from across the European flexographic community came together to celebrate the best of flexography during the event. In addition to well-deserved recognition of exceptional performance, it was an ideal opportunity to celebrate the vibrancy and competitiveness of flexography whilst providing a perfect forum for colleagues to network.