In the ongoing fight to win and retain customers in today's competitive food and beverage industry, the label is undoubtedly one of the most effective weapons. Shelf standout is crucial for both new and existing brands, to ensure consumers are immediately attracted to a product. This is where the label should be at its most assertive - and for more established products - instantly recognisable. Ensuring that the 'silent salesman' of the supermarket is of consistently high quality is key for manufacturers. Awareness is growing of how innovative printing can add value to brands by offering all-important points of differentiation to labels. The most common labelling solutions used by food and drink manufacturers are lithographic, paper-based wet glue labelling and flexographic self-adhesive labelling. Both these sectors are subject to increasingly stiff competition/even in higher value, more technologically advanced specifications. The wet glue label sector is often depicted as the poor relation of self-adhesive, due to an overall decline in demand over recent years. Competition from Europe due to a strong sterling, rationalisation and erosion of market share by self-adhesive labels, are ongoing challenges for wet glue. Indeed, recent marketing statistics reveal zero to 2% growth per annum in the wet glue sector, whereas growth in the self-adhesive label market is 5%. Of the total European market, self-adhesive constitutes a 58% market share, wet glue 30%, sleeving 6%, in mould 4% and others 2% (data from the European Labelling Manufacturers Association).
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