Print “essential service” in the corona crisis

Gravure’s strengths demanded

Since practically all European countries have shut down public life and imposed a curfew economies and industries are heavily affected.  This is of course valid also for our industry. Particularly the machinery and equipment manufacturers are in a difficult situation as they e.g. cannot send their technicians to their worldwide customers operating their machines. Publication printing is challenged by a drop in advertising as e.g. orders for promotion leaflets and catalogues have decreased. However, packaging printers and cylinder manufacturers are well loaded as they have to produce the urgently needed packaging material for the large brand article manufacturers and foodstuff producers. And as there is now particularly a demand for long runs there is a kind of renaissance of gravure. Due to its outstanding quality and high consistency over long runs gravure is the ideal process to fulfill this excessive demand. Frequent design changes due to special promotions in connection with e.g. events such as the European Football Cup or the Olympic Games are currently not the case anymore. A problem could arise for packaging printing in that ethanol, needed for the printing of packaging material, could become scarce as it is increasingly applied for the production of disinfectants. Intergraf, the Brussels based umbrella organisation of the European printing industry, therefore has calls on European and national authorities to secure the supply of ethanol for packaging printing. Moreover Intergraf has demanded that print is defined as an “essential service” in the corona crisis.

Press Release (EN)
Press Release (DE)