Tobacco bag printing company after the technological age shocks

The high content of cigarette pack printing technology and the complexity of the process are the obvious characteristics of cigarette pack printing in China that differ from the foreign pack printing technology. According to industry sources, China's cigarette package printing technology has a high demand for the process, which has far exceeded the developed countries in Europe and America. With the merger and reorganization of tobacco companies and the incorporation of the International Tobacco Framework Convention, the four giants of the tobacco industry in China have emerged. The old-fashioned Warring States-style melee situation will no longer exist, followed by the standardization and fixed-point printing of cigarette packets. With scale and related issues, this reporter interviewed related cigarette pack printing companies in China and tried to show the actual status of cigarette pack printing technology in China to everyone.

Current Status of Cigarette Printing Technology in China

First, the use of innovative technology to obtain large-scale market, the obvious characteristics of first-line growth companies

With the advent of the era of knowledge economy, China's labor-intensive enterprises are becoming more and more active in their transition to technologically-innovative companies, and tend to use technology to gain market share. For the cigarette industry, it is no exception. Take Shenzhen Jinjia Company as an example. In a short period of seven years, an unknown small plant has grown to be the top of the China Top 100 Printing Enterprises in 2005. One of the secrets of its business success is to take the road of technological “strength”. Its main features are:

1. Work with equipment suppliers to create a patented device that gives it unique control over the printing process.
2. Adhere to the road of technological innovation to save costs and open up markets.
3. Lead the industry trend by developing environmental protection technologies.

Jin Jia's road to technological innovation began with the laser holographic anti-counterfeiting technology for cigarette marking. A major feature of China's cigarette market in the 1990s was the large number of counterfeit cigarettes. For the purpose of anti-counterfeiting, there were fingernail-size laser anti-counterfeit signs on the cigarette packaging at the time, but the technology was low and it was easily copied. One of the company’s co-founders, Joe Lu Yuhuai, came to Shenzhen with 3 million yuan borrowed from the company. He started to produce laser holographic film cigarettes in cooperation with Shenzhen University’s reflective material factory, which was the country’s leading laser holographic technology. In 2000, the company launched the first laser holographic cigarette labeling technology in the country. As a result, this technology alone created a production value of 260 million yuan for Jing Jia and seized market opportunities. In terms of technology, Jinjia has mastered a variety of models such as dripping anti-counterfeit, ultraviolet anti-counterfeiting, fluorescence anti-counterfeiting, laser holographic anti-counterfeiting technology, and 4D4 anti-counterfeiting technology according to the needs of the market's anti-counterfeiting technology. In terms of products, Jinjia has self-developed and produced laser paper and laser hologram transfer film, in which 100cm×75cm, 100cm×150cm (connected length 4000m) wide plain holographic film, still the country's largest wide format specifications . What made Zhenjia famous was the rudimentary gravure printing unit of the world's first compound-transporting 9-colour connection race, which had spent more than 60 million in 2003 and was completed in cooperation with Italy’s Sarudi. The form of cooperation is also unique: The Italian company carries out equipment manufacturing based on Jingjia’s technological innovation; Jingjia is responsible for the selection of production materials and technology development according to the requirements of the product process. It also owns this type of equipment in Asia for 5 years. Exclusive rights. At the time, laser anti-counterfeit cigarette labels were printed on the laser film and the paper composites produced composite seams, resulting in a 25% scrap rate. However, if the composite paper production technology and gravure printing production technology are combined, the composite, transfer and gravure printing of the aluminized film and the paper on one machine can be reconciled in one go, and this defect can be made up. The successful application of this device is also Jing Jia. A lot of profits have been created. So far, Jin Jia has mastered 7 national patent technologies with independent intellectual property rights. With its strong strength in technology and scale, Jin Jia withstands the pressure of rising raw material prices. Through the process transformation, the cost has dropped by 3.26%, while the profit rate has also increased significantly; the company's own R&D and production of high-tech products accounted for 54.29% of total sales revenue for the year. Jing Jia's road to technological innovation has laid its dominance in the cigarette packet printing industry.

Second, cigarette bag anti-counterfeiting technology is currently the focus of development of domestic cigarette pack printing technology

From a global perspective, cigarette packs in other countries are far from luxurious and extravagant as Chinese cigarette packs. China's cigarette pack technology is already very advanced. In the future, China's cigarette packet technology has great potential for development. Related experts believe that this trend may continue for 7 to 8 years. As foreign tobacco industry enters China, cigarette packet printing will gradually shift to practical environmental protection. The main type, but in terms of cigarette bag anti-counterfeiting technology, will continue to move forward. Tobacco packaging companies will focus their efforts on anti-counterfeiting. At present, in the application of new materials, Chinese cigarette pack printing has also taken the lead in the world.

At present, the main anti-counterfeiting methods used by cigarette packs are as follows:

1, anti-counterfeiting design before printing

The use of foreign brands such as Barco, Mongolian, and domestic Founder software and designing platemaking systems for anti-counterfeit designs. Specific anti-counterfeiting technologies include: rainbow shading, embossed shading, anti-copy shading, gradient shading, lace, neo-jumbo, borders, microtext, “mask unlocking” technology, and rainbow multicolor printing. The back of the India and so on.

2, printing process security

In the printing process, a combination of multiple processes such as offset printing, screen printing, flexo printing, and gravure printing makes cigarette packs more difficult to print and have better anti-counterfeiting effects. Increase the complexity of the process, have higher requirements for printing equipment and operation level, production capacity, improve the difficulty of registering, can effectively improve the difficulty of product imitation by manufacturers with relatively small scale. However, this is only a function of anti-counterfeiting at the same time that printing is completed. It is an aspect of anti-counterfeiting and is not a professional anti-counterfeiting technology in the strict sense. In these printing processes, the gravure printing anti-counterfeiting effect is better. However, because the printing technology is easy to grasp, the overall anti-counterfeiting effect of the process security is not good.

3, anti-counterfeit supplies

In the anti-counterfeiting process of cigarette pack printing consumables, the anti-counterfeiting effect is mainly represented by paper and ink.

Paper-based anti-counterfeiting technologies mainly include: fiber paper (adding colored fiber yarns during the paper manufacturing process, such as "Hongmei" of Yuxi Cigarette Factory), holographic laser paper (including full-plate hologram laser pattern paper and local positioning laser pattern Paper, such as the "litchi pen" of the Qingdao Cigarette Factory and the "Liqun Group" of the Hangzhou Cigarette Factory).

The ink-based anti-counterfeiting technology is mainly to add anti-counterfeit materials with special properties in the ink binder, and is processed into special printing inks through special processes. This kind of anti-counterfeiting technology is characterized by simple implementation, low cost, good concealment and vivid colors. The inspection is convenient. At present, the anti-counterfeiting inks used in cigarette pack printing mainly include: anti-counterfeit inks with variable temperature (reversible color change: blue, green, black become colorless or colored, red is black; irreversible color change: no color change to black, red, Blue, etc.), Light-change security ink (colorless ink, under bright sunlight or ultraviolet light, bright colored purple, blue, yellow, etc.; colored color ink, under the excitation of long and short-wave ultraviolet light Produce fluorescence and change color), water change security ink and some special pearlescent, gold sand series ink. Such as Chuxiong Cigarette Factory's "Guobin" (red), Ningbo Cigarette Factory's "Red Eagle", Longyan Cigarette Factory "seven wolf" (Pride), Qingdao Cigarette Factory's "Litch Pen" and so on.

4, post-press processing anti-counterfeiting

Post-print anti-counterfeiting technology includes holographic positioning hot stamping technology (such as "Hongtashan" of Hongta Group, "Jinsheng" of Jiangxi Cigarette Factory, "Cloud Smoke" of Kunming Cigarette Factory, "Red Eagle" of Ningbo Cigarette Factory, etc.), Hot Stamping Embossing One-step molding technology (such as the "Red Eagle" of Ningbo Cigarette Factory), two-dimensional embossing technology (such as the "Liche Pen" of Qingdao Cigarette Factory), and hot-print anti-counterfeit technology (the laser-engraved delicate texture on the bronzing plate, To achieve the effect of difficult to copy, such as Chuxiong Cigarette Factory's blue "guest".

At present, Dongguan Hucai uses a round-press stamping stamping process. Round-round hot stamping equipment is relatively expensive and currently has only 5 to 6 units in the domestic market. Suitable for hot stamping products with large area. Can do a large area. Thin lines of hot stamping effect. Combining such equipment and technology, the quality of products after hot stamping is obviously different from that of other hot stamping products; in addition, the high price of equipment also contributes to the prevention of counterfeiting.

5, other anti-counterfeiting methods

The commodity bar code is a kind of product code. The bar code with anti-counterfeit function has two kinds of invisible bar code and metal bar code, but such technology is not suitable for direct consumer identification. At present, the main bar code in China is a fixed code, which is specific to a brand and a certain series. Recently, the industry has been exploring the use of an independent bar code technology for each cigarette or even for each cigarette. Bar codes are also beneficial to logistics and merchandise sales while preventing fraud.

The code anti-counterfeiting identification and telephone identification system is to set a random password on each product to record all the network access product records in the anti-counterfeit data center database, so that consumers can use phone, computer and other tools to verify the correctness of the password. The authenticity of the product. However, there are loopholes in the security code identification code, and most consumers are reluctant to make inquiries. This leaves a hole for counterfeiters.

A major problem for the Chinese tobacco industry is that counterfeit cigarettes continue to be banned for many times. In order to prevent counterfeiting, it has forced tobacco companies to impose higher requirements on cigarette pack printing companies, hoping to increase the difficulty of imitation of cigarette packs and to eliminate the use of counterfeit cigarettes. This also provides a large space for the development of anti-counterfeiting technology for cigarette packets. Various anti-counterfeiting technologies are emerging one after another. Some cigarette packs appear with 20 anti-counterfeiting at the same time, and basically belong to the second and third-level anti-counterfeiting. The average consumer can only see through the naked eye and must be detected through professional equipment. Some cigarette packs in China are even anti-counterfeit using DNA technology. This is a very specialized technology that cannot be identified by the average consumer and requires professionals such as consumer associations and tobacco manufacturers to identify them. As foreign tobacco companies enter China, domestic enterprises will tend to be on the level of anti-counterfeiting, which will make it easier for ordinary consumers to distinguish between true and false. It will become more intuitive, humane, and intelligent. Some cigarette pack companies try to make each box of cigarettes an “ID card” in coded form. Because the randomness of the bar code in the production process brings the security code of each pack of cigarettes to be “unique”, consumers You can check the authenticity of the Internet on the digital display on the security code.

Third, the rapid increase in the output of a single species makes the printing process tend to be simplified

Compared with the overseas cigarette pack printing technology, China's cigarette packs are printed in terms of quality and are far more sophisticated than some well-known foreign brands. This has become the pride of the cigarette pack printing industry in China, but as China joins the International Tobacco Framework Convention and Global tobacco packaging in foreign countries is taking the trend of “simpleness for the United States” and the printing technology in China has gradually changed.

For the industry, this change first stems from the policy restructuring of our country.

In the past, the number of cigarette factories in our country was relatively large and dispersed, but after mergers and reorganizations, the scale became larger and the cigarette pack production also became more centralized. However, due to the need for brand building, the printing volume of single cigarette packs will be obvious. Increased, due to changes in production and production cycle requirements, directly leading to cigarette package printing from cumbersome to simple. The former cigarette pack is a diversified product. The combination of multi-function and multi-brand is often the result of multiple printing processes. Although in the short-term it is mainly multi-process, the future development trend will be more and more simple.

The integration and reorganization of tobacco companies has resulted in an increasingly large quantity of single-type cigarette packs. Unlike the original cigarette pack brands, a brand only prints a small amount of cigarette packs and cannot produce large-scale printing production. And now some of the well-known brands, such as Baisha, Hongta cigarettes, the amount of cigarette packets printed by a single brand is getting larger and larger. It was only 20,000 large boxes a year, and now it has reached more than 600,000 large boxes. In the past, a variety of tobacco companies was allocated to the following small factories. Each factory had a small amount of printing. Because there was a relatively small amount of time, the slow work made a move, and in order to attract consumers' attention, the packaging became more and more. Exquisite, but now because the package printing orders are mainly concentrated in the hands of several large companies, the order is more than 10,000 boxes, using a gravure printing machine to print also takes two or three days, can not be printed as it was Gravure printing complements other printing methods. After the merger of tobacco companies, cigarette pack companies are required to have large-scale printing capabilities. The increase in printing volume will make it impossible for cigarette pack companies to slowly process many complex processes as they did before.