Flexographic Printing – Superior Handling, Top Print Quality with tesa

The shopping bag is 100 years old. Nowadays an all-purpose item, it weighs a scant 20 grams, but can transport an impressive 20 kilograms. Whether as a boutique tote, grocery bag, or conference giveaway, this mass-market product, originally developed for the food industry, has progressed to become a high-tech accessory that carries advertising messages.

The carrier bag is an indispensable aid to shopping and and even reflects a society’s prosperity, but is just one feature of the global packaging business, which is worth about £250 billion, with annual growth rates of between 2% and 4%. Enterprises rely on high-quality shopping bags, and brilliant colours, fine images, and photo-quality illustrations are top of the agenda.

The best possible choice for flexographic printers

Today, packaging with such sophisticated printing is mainly produced using flexographic printing – currently the main industrial printing process worldwide. Flexographic technology is on the rise throughout the world, and promises high growth rates in the future. Flexographic printing can be used for a range of materials, requires only short print preparation times, is low-cost, and produces very good quality print.

The process uses flexible photopolymer plates with a backing layer, a light-sensitive relief layer, and a protective film coating. After a finishing process, the plates are mounted on a sleeve or print cylinder using a plate mounting tape.

To achieve optimum prints, tesa offers a full range of plate mounting tapes, each tailored precisely to different printing process requirements. For example, the mounting of thin plates used for sophisticated raster printing. In this technique, the printed dots are very fine, and require a harder printing plate, which, in turn, demands a softer foam plate mounting tape. Firmer foams, on the other hand, are better suited to colour transfer in solid and combination printing.

The various foam thicknesses, acrylic and rubber adhesive masses and different adhesive strengths, allows customised use in all modern-day flexographic printing techniques. Printing plates can be mounted smoothly, repositioned easily, and removed simply, all without residue after demounting: additional advantages that make tesa plate mounting tapes the best possible choice for flexographic printers.