Labelling

There are plenty of options, and as in so many other aspects of the beverage industry there is no ready-made solution: Foil or paper, roll-feed or pre-cut sheet-feed, hot-melt or cold-melt or is a full body sleeve required.

Paper or Foil?
When making a choice for paper or foil labels, one of the advantages that should be considered is that paper is available worldwide and is quickly obtained, with foil this may not always be the case. Unlike foil labels, paper labels are a cheaper solution, especially if only small quantities are required. When processing large batches however this situation I quickly reversed.Another advantage of paper labels is that paper is not affected by static electricity – something that can occur with foil labels. Foil labels do have the very clear advantage of being insensitive to moisture, unlike paper labels and foil labels are much more capable of coping with possible bottle expansion when bottles are filled with carbonated beverages than paper labels. Both materials have their advantage and disadvantages but for any bottler the final decision has to be made based on the widest possible range of requirements.

Sheet-feed and Pre-cut labels
Sheet-fed of pre-cut labels can be used for paper labels just as well as the roll-feed method. Inexpensive labelling equipment is a primary factor in favour of sheet-feed processing. Both the hot-melt as well as cold adhesive labelling techniques can be used to apply paper labels.

Hot-melt Labelling
The principle of hot-melt, sheet-feed labelling is similar to that of cold adhesive labelling. The main difference lies in the fact that the labels are pre-cut and fed from a magazine instead of a roll.

The labelling process can be summarized as follows: Small amounts of hot-melt are applied directly to the PET bottles. The bottles are then rotated past the label magazine where the glue picks up a label directly from the magazine. The rotary motion wraps the label tightly around the bottle, after which the overlapping ends are precisely stuck together by a band of glue.

Cold labelling process
Similar to the hot-melt process, the bottles for cold adhesive labelling are conveyed by a feed scroll and star-wheel, feeding them onto the carrousel and to the labelling station. The label materials are removed from the label magazine by a glue segment to which a glue drum has already applied glue. The glue segment is run past a gripper drum. The gripper drum pulls the label off the glue segment by means of special grippers and transfers with its glued side to the container. The cold adhesive technique involves applying labels with glue covering the entire label surface, which ensures maximum labelling reliability. Another advantage of cold adhesive labelling is that one labelling station is capable of applying several labels.

Full Body Sleeving
Anyone who shops for food these days is bound to encounter a growing number of eye-catching blow moulded bottles intended to provide striking graphic appeal and stimulate the impulse to buy. The bottles consist of redesigned versions of traditional plastic bottles that are nearly 100% sheathed in tight-fitting, brightly decorated shrink or stretch labels. These full-body sleeves can be applied to monolayer and barrier bottles and are as effective for extrusion blow moulded PP and HDPE bottles as for stretch-blow moulded PET.

A new generation of high-performance sleeves that provide 360° head-to-toe coverage is what makes this packaging concept possible. Graphics are high-quality, typically with 10-color rotogravure printing, and they envelop the bottle in a blaze of color, logos, and printed information. The sleeves shrink into or stretch around contours, penetrate variable geometries (such as hourglass shapes), and conform to irregular features (grips or slender necks).

At present, full-body sleeves are mostly used for new-product introductions in beverages, dairy products, powdered foods, and dry snacks. Big name users include Danone, Tropicana, Nestlé, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and the Frito-Lay Division of Pepsico, among many others.

Sleeves are part of a system including bottle and closure, and are also used to securely bundle different plastic package components into an integrated system. Easy-removal and tamper-evident features are often incorporated into full body sleeves. Full-body sleeve labels also act as a shield when the packager prefers that murky contents (e.g., condiments) remain unseen.

A variety of materials are used for sleeves, from BOPP printed rolls, styrene, vinyl and copolyester (PETG).

Labelling and Sleeving equipment manufacturers
There are various manufacturers of labeling and sleeving equipment, ie. KHS, Krones, PDC among others, should you be interested in finding a suitable used labeller or sleever we suggest you contact us by email at sales@petmachinery.com and let us know your requirements.