Just how are wet strength labels bringing benefits to printers? We explore some of the tends, where (and why) we're seeing increased demand and how metallized wet strength labels can help printers attract more clients.

A word on why there’s increased demand for wet strength labels

It is expected that, by 2026, the global alcoholic beverage market will gross in excess of USD1.8 billion. With bottled water and consumption of different soft drinks on the rise too, consumer demand for packaged and bottled beverages is set to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.

This high demand for bottled beverages of all kinds is not only good news for producers, but also for you, the printer. With more brands entering into the beverage market and increased competition between already-established companies and their newer rivals, you can expect to see more brands in need of a printing partner.

So, while that’s excellent news, the downside is that the demands your clients place on you are higher than ever before: quality, cost efficiency, label recyclability and getting products to market on time are key considerations, as well as the expectation that you’ll be keeping abreast of any evolving technologies that help beverage producers print cheaper and faster.

This paper explores how wet strength labels made from metallized paper can help printers reach a broader client base.

How can metallized wet strength labels help printers attract more clients?

With increased demand for bottled beverages, more labels need to be produced to keep up with demand - a fantastic opportunity for printers to grow their client base.

Among beverage producers, however, there’s still fierce competition, as established brands bring out more beverages and new enterprises and products enter the marketplace. Naturally, that means that all of today’s beverage manufacturers are looking for a surefire way to make their products as appealing as possible to potential customers. They are looking to leverage the papers, inks and high-quality prints you provide to make their products as attractive as possible.

What this means is that your clients are coming to you with a pretty fixed idea of what they want from a label. At the forefront of that will be a great label that stands out in stores. Simply put, your clients want their products flying off the shelves! And while aesthetics are important, you know that it’s not just about looks…

There are numerous other considerations your clients need to be making when it comes to wet strength labels – for instance, the label’s ability to pass demanding ice-bucket tests, its resistant to humid bottling environments, the friction endured on the bottling and sorting lines, and once again during transport.

And what if you could switch it around? What if you could offer to print on a material that is a little bit out of the ordinary to new and existing clients – an option that’s ideally suited for wet strength labels, and attractive enough that it can increase sales for your clients by boosting the premium appeal of their products? 

Believe us, it’s not too good to be true…And it’s possible without increasing your overheads!

The solution? Printing wet strength labels on metallized paper.

By printing metallized wet strength labels, you’re essentially providing a way for beverage manufacturers to set their product apart from the competition. As metallized wet strength labels convey quality and value (which is exactly what brands are looking for) for only a small investment on their part, it’s a pretty compelling solution for printers to be able to offer their clients.

So where does that get you? As a printer, metallized paper gives you the ability to cater to a broader range of brands and clients, offering them a very commercial and attractive label that’s likely to boost their sales or increase the price of their products. What’s important is that you’re able to offer that without having to change your basic printing infrastructure, which means more printing without incurring higher overheads or requiring special handling or printing techniques that you don’t already have in-house.

A secondary, but less obvious selling point, is metallized paper’s ability to be recycled. With consumers increasingly turning to brands that are taking steps to be more sustainable, there is also a solid business case for offering your clients a label solution that both looks great and is recyclable – we talk about the properties of metallized paper for recycling later in this paper. 

Characteristics of metallized paper for printers

At Nissha Metallizing Solutions, we produce metallized paper that ranges from 56gsm to 78gsm. It is compatible with all contemporary printing techniques such as offset, rotogravure, UV and flexography. It offers a surface that is ideal for interaction between the paper and ink, resulting in excellent printability, great definition and clarity as well as no dye bleeding on the final metallized wet strength label.

Metallized paper is suited to all types of ink, such as solvent-based, water-based and UV curable.

Now a word about digital printing. You’re the printing experts, so we’ll keep this short and sweet: metallized paper is compatible with digital printing. If you’re an already established digital printer or if you’ve just invested in digital equipment, and you want to test, experiment or investigate using metallized paper with your digital printers, let the team at Nissha Metallizing Soluitons know – we guarantee we’ll be available every step of the way to assist you with the optimum set-up of our product for digital printing.

Nissha Metallizing Solutions: not just a supplier; a trusted partner

We’re not here to help you deliver a good label; we’re here to help you deliver a great one. We understand that if there are issues with any of the fundamental elements clients expect from a wet strength label (bleeding, curling, challenges passing the ice-bucket test), they’ll be looking to you for answers – even if as a printer these defects don’t necessarily stem from you.

At Nissha Metallizing Solutions, we’ve had decades of experience, and we’re highly skilled producers and innovators of metallized paper – we’re some of the most proficient manufacturers in the business. We’re proud to consistently provide an exceptional product, and we undertake nothing less than regular and rigorous performance procedures on our papers.

We’re proud of our ability and availability to help troubleshoot any issues you could potentially incur with the metallized face board. Let’s say a label isn’t sticking to the bottle like you thought it would, or labeling trials are bringing up some unexpected challenges. We’ll be here to analyze the performance of our product and, if needed, develop its characteristics so that it’s the best fit – literally – for you and your clients.

We’re aware that anything less than the best quality can create issues and delay print-runs. So, while we rarely have doubts as to the quality of our product, if we do, it never leaves our factories. We only stock printers with metallized paper that we’re 100% happy with, so you have total peace of mind about the quality we supply.

Recyclability and sustainability of metallized wet strength labels

The future of the planet concerns us all, and we know that your clients are asking you about the best possible options for sustainability and recycling.

Aside from its visual appeal, one of the main reasons why metallized wet strength labels can be an attractive option for your clients is because metallized paper is as recyclable as paper (the aluminum coating is so thin that it doesn’t impede the recycling process at all). This makes it a much more eco-friendly option than other materials– like foils or plastic films – that can’t be recycled.

Nissha Metallizing Solutions sources paper from producers that are FSC certified, so you can assure your clients our paper (and therefore their labels) are eco-friendly and sustainably-sourced.

Wet strength metallized paper labels for returnable bottles

With beer consumption on the up, and more and more craft beers flooding into the market, we know that breweries are key clients for printers. That said, we also know that they can place some pretty specific and strenuous demands on you for their labels, especially those who take back empty bottles before sanitizing, refilling and reselling them.

These brewers need a wet strength label material that has a suitable alkali-resistance, so that the label does not fall apart during its submersion in the caustic bath that removes it when the bottle is returned. Likewise, you’ll have to be sure that the ink won’t run during this submersion process which would add costs and slow down your clients’ on-site recycling process.

Our metallized paper product is ideal for these demanding environments. Wet strength labels created from metallized paper are resilient enough for the alkali solution to get the label to peel off in one complete piece with minimal breakage. Given the metallized paper surface interacts perfectly with the printing ink, the label will not let ink bleed into the caustic liquid, so you can assure your clients your labels will allow for maximum usage before the solution has to be replaced. All these elements contribute to metallized paper being the perfect wet strength label material for breweries who handle their bottle refills in-house.

How metallized wet strength labels can help bring products to the market, faster

Today, there are more rules and regulations for beverage manufacturers to comply with than ever before. While that doesn’t concern printers directly, it does mean that you can’t afford any delays or issues during your print runs given that there’s so little time between approval for the product to go to market and its scheduled delivery in stores.

Because metallized paper is compatible with digital printing, you may be able to test prototype labels digitally. This means you can shave time off the prototype and testing process – and logically, the sooner labels are approved, the sooner you can start your print run.

Conclusion

At Nissha Metallizing Solutions, we’re passionate about metallized paper – not just because we produce it, but because we believe it has so many benefits and can provide some great upshots for today’s printers.

Using metallized paper can help you to reach a new and developing client base, tapping into the opportunities in the international beverage market without increasing your overheads. At the same time, you’ll be able to assure your clients about the sustainability of their label material and its ability to be recycled while adding to the visual appeal of the labels you produce.