Gravure pioneer benefits from Guala investment

20 April 2006



Specialist three layer laminate converter Safta, of Piacenza, shows the quality of gravure print that is typical of the Italian converting industry, reports Pauline Covell


Acquired by the €210M turnover Guala Group in 2002, flexible packaging converter Safta has seen an investment in Italian built converting equipment: a new Rotomec 3000 RES nine colour press two years ago and a Nordmeccanica solvent/solventless Duplex Combi laminator at the end of last year.

The €85M turnover company, which converted 18,200t of material in 2004, specializes in innovative laminates. “Said business development manager Alfredo Orlandi: “Most are three layer laminates – 68.7 per cent. Typical is the PET/aluminium foil/PE, which we call Sterifoil. Four layer laminates account for 12.6 per cent and 17.7 per cent are of two layers. We use PET, aluminium, polyamide, PE and paper.

“Our main markets are for food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Our customers are in the main multinationals such as Douwe Egberts, Kraft and Nestlé (laminates for coffee packaging, for example, detergent producers such as Henkel and Unilever, pharmaceuticals suppliers BMS and Baxter, and J & J and L’Oreal in cosmetics. Thirty-two per cent of our turnover is in Italy, but Germany figures highly at 22.8 per cent and the Middle East at 10.4 per cent.

“We began laminating in 1962. It was all in-line until we bought the latest machine.” He explained: “Our evaluation was an economic one. With the new Rotamec we can gravure print very fast – up to 300m/min - so we decided to laminate off line.” Lamination would have not kept pace with the press and if there were waste it would have been laminated waste with an in-line system. “Off line we can optimize lamination and we already have good printed material. Our decision not to go to flexo was a given as our customers demanded high quality print.” Average run length on the press is 15,000m and the plant operates on a three shift system. Why was the Rotamec press chosen?“ Our feeling then was that the price was more convenient, but from a technical point of view it was also better,” he replied. It is equipped with an AVT PrintVision Argus. When Converting Today visited the plant it was running stick pack material at 264m/min.

The rest of the equipment armoury includes five blown film lines (Reifenhäuser and Windmöller and Hölscher), in-house Hell cylinder engraving and five Cerutti gravure presses (one nine colour, two eight colour and one seven colour). In addition to the latest laminator Safta has four other machines in total providing four with three layer lamination capability and one for two layer laminates. It is also equipped for extrusion lamination on an Er-We-Pe line. An automated cylinder store houses 6,000 cylinders.

Of the eight slitter rewinders the latest, bought at the same time as the press, is a Titan SR7 with automatic knife setting.


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Rotomec 3000 part of Safta investment Rotomec 3000 part of Safta investment


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