Nowadays, as the use of napkins becomes more and more popular, the requirements for the quality of napkins are getting higher and higher, and the color of napkin prints is also more colorful. The advancement of water-based ink technology has laid the foundation for flexographic printers to enter the napkin printing market. In southern China and the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, napkin flexo printing has become a new investment hotspot.
In many life situations in Europe and the United States and other countries, such as family dinners, reunions, birthday parties, wedding parties, etc., consumers usually want to reflect distinctive tastes in various details. For example, a special pattern of color printed napkins and napkins printed with different patterns, different congratulatory texts and poems are used to create a happy and warm atmosphere. Each family's kitchen is also equipped with a variety of styles of napkins for different occasions, different needs. Shop supermarkets are also selling, as well as design companies that specialize in color printed napkin designs.
We know that the investment in this kind of color printing napkin equipment is very small. A set of equipment only needs 25,000 yuan. The computer typing and engraving shop can make plates, can be printed with various colors and patterns, and each napkin can also be based on customer requirements. Printing shop badges and propaganda language, improve the brand and grade of the store, and sell well, but the cost increases only 0.00001 yuan / Zhang.
However, in the current Chinese market, only a few foreign fast food chains such as McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut will have simple patterns printed on napkins. However, in the domestic catering industry and ordinary households, the use of personalized printed napkin products is rare. Undoubtedly, with the rapid development of China's economy, the demand for personalized products will increase. Individualized printed napkins will be a huge business opportunity.
Substrate requirements
Because the flexographic printing belongs to ink-and-ink printing, swelling of the paper is easily caused when water or ink is large, partial unevenness after printing affects the next printing, and wrinkles are also easily caused. At the same time, the easily swollen printing materials exacerbate the fluctuation of the tension. The accuracy of overprinting fluctuates, making it difficult to produce good products. Secondly, due to the poor wet strength of the tissue paper, after contact with the printing plate, the loose fibers on the paper can be easily brought onto the plate surface, resulting in a paste plate, which can not be carried out continuously, and seriously affect the printing quality and yield.
Ordinary facial tissue is a simple combination of two or three layers of non-puckered toilet paper hinges, then flexographic printing, and then embossed by toothed rollers and paper and foil rollers. Chinese napkins mostly belong to this category.
Most of the napkins on the European and American tables today are micro-sizing composite materials before printing. Such napkins are smooth, wrinkle-free, have texture and heavy feeling, and a special product is a micro-gel composite product with a printing layer in the middle. The three-layer structure, therefore, has a good texture and flexibility, the product surface is more beautiful.
Napkins produced by domestic printers should try to change the method of embossing and pressing into microsizing and compounding before printing, so that the quality of napkins can have a qualitative leap. In addition, domestic napkins should also be improved in materials to narrow the gap with foreign products. Such as the use of high-purity wood pulp to produce base paper, add enough anti-wetting agent, and strive to meet the printing requirements on the surface roughness and wet strength.
Ink requirements
Since napkins are closely related to people's lives and involve the service industry, they require that the ink used be safe, non-toxic, strong and non-porous.
Napkin printing is initially printed with grease type inks, which is characterized by good on-board adaptability, but the odor of the printed matter is particularly large. Some napkin printers using letterpress technology try to print napkin paper using glycol ink (washable) to eliminate print odors. However, this process encounters some difficulties. For example, when the print product encounters ethylene glycol, ink pick-up occurs (the liquid spreads or penetrates into the paper in four directions); in addition, the on-pressurization of the ink is not satisfactory.
1. The main advantages
With the gradual progress of ink technology, napkin printing companies have begun to turn to more suitable flexographic printing water-based inks, and they feel the advantages of pigment inks over dye inks. In this context, flexo printing technology has entered the stage of napkin printing. Its main advantages are as follows.
(1) The odor is smaller, and it has good chemical resistance and abrasion resistance.
(2) Reduced ink pick-up. After some napkins are stained with beverages, the ink on them will smear white table cloths or clothes, which will incur consumer complaints. The composition of the flexographic printing water-based ink contains a resin and a wax that harden after drying, and after the pigment displaces the dye, the ink crepe paper is minimized.
(3) Environmental protection: Since waste inks (such as water-based inks and solvent-based inks) can recover pigments, flexographic printing water-based inks are more environmentally friendly. Because no VOCs are produced, flexographic printing aqueous inks meet the environmental requirements for reducing VOC emissions.
(4) Improve corporate profits: Reduced price pressures and ink inventories are very helpful to the company's operations.
2. Precautions
If you are considering entering the napkin printing market, the most critical thing is to understand the relationship between ink and ink and napkin prints. No matter what kind of material is printed on the surface, it is important to understand that the color of napkin printing has limitations. Therefore, when selecting the ink, pay special attention to the following points.
(1) Common sense in pigments. For example, to know which pigments are not suitable for printing on napkins, such as rose red, methyl violet, basic blue, red C precipitated pigments, etc., because these pigments affect the ink after contact with certain compounds (such as water and ethanol, etc.) Resistance.
(2) There are two types of inks available for napkin printers. One is finished ink and the other is concentrated ink. Finished inks can only be printed on a limited number of substrates. Concentrated inks can be printed on a variety of substrates, but some additives need to be added. Concentrated inks are easy to use and can be applied to a variety of printers and anilox rollers, which is important because a lot of different types of machines are often used.
(3) In order to avoid the problem of poor resistance after napkin printing, it is necessary to know which substances the napkin will come into contact with in the terminal application process. It must be considered that the napkin printing ink should have high alkali resistance and milk Materials such as water and ethanol are resistant. The detection method developed by the company should be reproducible to eliminate the influence of operator's subjective factors on the test results.
(4) Taking into account the safety of napkins in contact with the skin and eyes during use, it is necessary to familiarize with some terms, such as occasional food contact, food indirect contact and direct food contact, the correct choice of ink through the direct contact of food certification. When the printer fully considers the above factors, it will limit the choice of napkin printing ink color, especially many colorful colors can not be reproduced on the napkin, and these limitations also increase the cost of the ink.
The business community has a famous saying: "Business originates from creativity." As napkin printing, which also takes into account both the catering industry and the printing industry, there will be many difficulties in the development. However, we are convinced that as long as we continue to innovate and improve, we will make rapid advances in technology. Today, it will have more room for development and bring huge business opportunities to the catering and printing industries.