In a twenty-first century marketplace where excellence in print quality is increasingly important, the Korsnäs philosophy has become more and more relevant. Earlier this year at the efta Print Awards, a significant proportion of the winning designs were printed on Korsnäs coated liners.
Hollywood has its Oscars but the flexographic print industry’s equivalent is undoubtedly the eftas, organised annually by the European Flexographic Industry Association. In 2010, Smurfit Kappa, selfdeclared experts in post-print, swept the board in the coated substrate line and screen category, winning gold, silver and two bronze medals for packs manufactured at their Tannochside, Scotland plant – all printed on Korsnäs Decor light coated white top kraftliner. Similar successes were recorded in the coated process category, where the company’s Chelmsford plant won a gold and two silver medals, again featuring Korsnäs Decor as the printing substrate. Smurfit Kappa Pre Print Tamworth won gold in the Wide Web Process category, and John McAllister, General Manager tells us why: "We wanted to take a high-quality litho print job and achieve the same results with flexo pre-print. We were only able to do that thanks to Korsnäs coated paper."
Industry-leading smoothness
The shelf-ready packaging revolution has played its part in the Korsnäs success story, as Mike Houlston, uk Sales Director for Korsnäs, confirms: "The market for coated white top liners is growing as a result of the demand for srp, and this has led to the rise in popularity of high quality coated recycled liners. Whilst coated white test is often seen as an entry level liner in a market where there is a requirement for high quality print on the outside of an srp pack, the success of such a pack is sometimes followed by a desire to go one step further and upgrade to a premium liner. However, there are other factors such as edge cleanliness of the tear-off. For some years our liners have played a part in the efta awards, but it’s a shame that the manufacturer of the substrate doesn’t normally get a mention!" The comments of Richard Revell, Technical Sales Manager for uk sheet feeder Smurfit Kappa Norboard, are equally complimentary: "Our reasons for preferring to use Korsnäs coated white liners are simple – excellent printability with industry-leading smoothness, together with troublefree runnability on the corrugator. The paper is always within tolerance and without unexpected moisture variations, but equally important for us are the strength/bulk characteristics. Whatever the print method, all of our customers agree that Korsnäs liners are excellent." John Glancy, Technical Manager at Smurfit Kappa.
Tannochside agrees, saying: "Korsnäs material is the best in the market, and we always like using it – it’s an excellent substrate."