“100 Companies for Resource Efficiency” is an initiative that was launched by Baden-Württemberg’s state government and its leading trade associations. It is raising public awareness about companies with exemplary efficiency measures. And one of them is Südpack. On 24 November, the film manufac-turer was honored as one of the 100 companies for its pioneering SPQ tech-nology.
The name says it all: SPQ stands for Sustainable Print Quality and for novel printing technology by Südpack. The innovative SPQ process provides consid-erable advantages in terms of sustainability, efficiency and quality – and is a milestone in package printing.
Using the technology requires the complete standardization of machine and process parameters as well as smart color management with a standardized color palette. This results in fewer color changeovers and a reduction in solvent consumption while also considerably improving the quality level. The latter makes printing adjustments and on-site print approval obsolete, which reduces production waste. Yet another advantage is that printing plates can be pro-duced using a water-based process, which keeps solvent consumption low in the cleaning process as well.
As a whole, the optimized consumption of ink, solvents and energy as well as reduced film waste have a direct impact on the carbon footprint of the printed packaging films. “With SPQ, we reduce ink and solvent waste in the implemen-tation of printed images by more than 60 percent in the best case scenario,” highlighted Valeska Haux, Vice President Strategic Marketing at Südpack.
After the successful implementation of the first pilot projects in 2021, the pio-neering technology was immediately distinguished with the renowned German Packaging Award in Gold and in the economic efficiency category. Demand for this particularly sustainable printing process is on the rise – and the first cus-tomer orders are being processed on machines. “The entire food industry of-fers enormous potential for SPQ. Our goal is, in close collaboration with our customers, for SPQ technology to be used predominantly for producing printed packaging films,” emphad Valeska Haux. At the same time, intensive work on the optimization and further development of the technology is underway in order to “harmonize quality and sustainability even further.”
With SPQ, the expert committee of the flagship project has rightly declared Südpack a member of this year’s exclusive group of the “100 Companies for Resource Efficiency.” Shining examples like these “demonstrate how resource efficiency can be implemented in concrete terms as well as the benefits it pro-vides.”
Carolin Grimbacher, Managing Partner of the Südpack Group, is pleased about this special award as well: “Here at SÜDPACK, we are convinced that improving resource efficiency and the eco-balance as a whole is a central task for politics, science and, above all, industry. As a leading film manufacturer, but most importantly as a responsible family business, this topic is of particular rel-evance to us – and we hope with this initiative that we will be able to win over other companies as well.”
The award ceremony was held on 24 November 2022 during a fireside chat at Literaturhaus Stuttgart.
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