Printers honoured for their flexographic prowess

Feat:  18 awards come to India

The month of October 2010 shall be remembered as golden moments in the history of India not just for winning over 100 medals in the Commonwealth Games organized in New Delhi but also for Indian Flexo printers having won a big number of 18 awards in the 3rd Asia Pacific Grand Prix Cyrel Awards. Here’s a brief.

Aiming to promote the growth of Flexography within the printing and packaging industry, the winners of the 3rd Asia Pacific Grand Prix Cyrel competition were conferred 85 awards in eleven categories at a grand ceremony in Shanghai, in the august presence of over 200 attendees including customers, industry partners, academia, print buyers and media participating in the event lasting two days. Among these, several Indian printers including UFLEX, Wintek Flexo Prints, Letra Graphix, Multiflex, Sel-Jegat Printers, Pragati Flexo, ICM-Packaging, Unique Photo Offset Services, Bilcare Research, and Betts India – succeeded in winning no less than 18 awards.

Due to some unavoidable circumstances, UFLEX could not participate in the award ceremony in Shanghai. DuPont thus recently organized to hand over the awards to UFLEX in person at their premises in Noida. The awards were handed over by Mahesh Kode,

manager-sales, technical & marketing, India sub-continent, DuPont Packaging Graphics, to PK Agarwal, Jt president, UFLEX (Cylinder Div.) and Jivraj Pillai, exec-vice president UFLEX (Converting Div.). Speaking on the occasion, Mahesh said that it was a pleasure that India has received 18 awards in total. “It is remarkable that UFLEX entered into flexo printing just a year back, and managed to win two prestigious awards in the Grand Prix,” he added. Agarwal attributed the winning of the award to his brilliant team. “It was a big step for UFLEX to go into flexo printing and very soon we will be entering into labels as well,” concluded Agarwal.

A total of 422 entries from over 120 companies across ten countries in the Asia Pacific region participated in the competition.  The winners were chosen by an independent jury comprising of print buyers, printing gurus and noted print media professionals, including: Gautam Bhattacharjee, technology director of packaging & development Asia, P&G Technology (Beijing) Co Ltd; Guido Bambagioni, the group manager, packaging & design, Nestle R&D Centre Beijing Ltd; Xiaoxia Wan, the dean of School of Printing and Packaging Engineering, Wuhan University; Xu Wencai, professor, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication; and Wolfgang Klos-Geiger, the publisher and editor of G&K TechMedia GmbH.

Talking about the quality of the entries, Guido Bambagioni said, “I was impressed by the overall quality and the printing capability flexography has achieved, especially in the tag and label segment. We can see the fantastic quality and effect flexography is able to deliver with the combination of various other processes and effects.”

As per Gautam Bhattacharjee, “The entries were very high quality, especially for a region like Asia where high-quality flexography is relatively new.  We had a tough time selecting the winners.”

Click to Enlarge“It was an exciting two days.  It is clear that flexography is now breaking new horizons in Asia and you can see great quality from across the region. The quality of flexography coming from India, China and ASEAN is now world class, we are happy being a part of this exciting industry and process,” commented Vijay Ramachandran, marketing manager, DuPont Packaging Graphics-Asia Pacific.

Initiated in the year 1982 by DuPont Packaging Graphics, the Grand Prix Cyrel competition is open to all jobs printed with Cyrel plates or sleeves, including non-packaging applications. DuPont Packaging Graphics is one of the world’s leading suppliers of flexographic printing systems in digital and conventional formats; including Cyrel brand photopolymer plates, Cyrel FAST processing equipment, Cyrel round sleeves, mounting and finishing products.

Prior to the Awards distribution function, a day-long industry seminar entitled ‘The Printpack Congress’ was held discussing technical and new developments within the industry. Panel discussion between print-buyers and converters was yet another interesting activity.