Flint Group awarded with Expanded Gamut Certificate from Marvaco
Flint Group, a global supplier of high-quality flexo-printing plates and inks, was awarded the EGP partnership certificate. The certificate recognises the company’s capability of delivering tools for successful implementation of this modern production process. The certificate was awarded by Marvaco Ltd, a pioneer in modern EGP technology.
Flint Group is a company with tested and proven capability to supply modern process inks and photopolymer plate raw materials for implementing stable Expanded Gamut Printing (EGP) process. The first Full HD EGP project between Flint Group and Marvaco was initiated 2015 and resulted an ultra-high-quality job “Petfood”, printed in cooperation with Soma at 100 lpcm (254 lpi) on OPP in Drupa’16. Since then, Flint Group and Marvaco have implemented the Full HD EGP also for water-based inks on paper and both UV and solvent-based inks on self-adhesive labels.
The certificate is awarded for the stability and excellent process reliability of the inks and plates based on the experience in numerous prints at several printers in the past three years. The jobs have been printed in high line screen even up to 70 lpcm (178 lpi) in daily production. Moreover, the awarded success in different flexo printing competitions using Marvaco’s EGP repro-plate solution verifies that the EGP printing results with the Flint Group technology have been excellent.
The technology of expanded color gamut is in daily use among the most advanced packaging printers. To promote the easier implementation and recognition of the process, Marvaco and its American partner company, CSW, have awarded partnership certificates to flexo printers and companies manufacturing flexographic printing supplies.
The printing companies need skilful and capable partners to implement the EGP technology. Flint Group’s performance to supply user friendly flexo printing inks and high quality flexo raw plates has been tested even in the most demanding applications with various materials, says Kai Lankinen, Chairman of Marvaco. He adds that the stability and repeatability of the Full HD EGP meets brand owners’ expectations for the quality, and fulfils the strictest productivity needs of the printers.
“We feel truly honoured for the recognition of the stable reliability of our products with the EGP partnership certification. At Flint Group, we work daily on all customer critical topics to satisfy our customers’ needs for ever improving cost and quality according to our key principles of Better, Faster and Easier to use. Since the initiation of the first Full HD EGP project in 2015, we have closely worked with our trusted partner Marvaco to supply consistently high quality and reliable plates and inks, which meet the strict requirements to implement the EGP process at printing companies. We are pleased with the progress our two companies have made in the past years and are looking forward to further projects in this area.” says Friedrich von Rechteren, VP Sales EMEA & Global Marketing, Flint Group.
The EGP repro-plate technology enables printing with no need for manual mixing of spot colors. The predictable and precise brand colors are implemented with digitally assisted ink blending, where the CMYK color gamut is enriched e.g. with additional OGV (Orange, Green, Violet) process inks. The printers have reported remarkable rise in efficiency and quality since moving to use Marvaco’s Full HD EGP. What is more, even the consumption of ink and solvents has dropped dramatically, that makes the process even greener than traditional flexo printing.
The brand colors that have been restricted by the CMYK method in the past can now be printed in a nearly unrestricted, more precise manner, batch after batch, as the EGP technology multiplies the number of available color shades compared to the Pantone+ color series. The other advantages of this technology include gang printing of different products at the same time and more cost-efficient printing of smaller print runs.
International brand owners and printing companies are moving on to EGP, and the further interest is growing quickly.
