After the turbulent times during the pandemic, the
industrial labels market is on the path of resurgence with many estimates expecting the
label market to reach USD 94.52 billion by the year 2030. Also between the forecast period of 2021 and 2030, the industrial labels market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.60 percent. Apart from the reopening of the market after the pandemic, there are multiple other reasons that are accelerating the growth of the industry and these include: a) the growing popularity of e-commerce and m-commerce across the globe, and b) the market growth of FMCG, construction, and automotive industries. Owing to these reasons, the demand for top-notch labels that is easier to track as well as to read is increasing. The Asia-Pacific region which is dominated by China and India is expected to witness some of the fastest growths in the industrial labels market owing to the steady rise in the consumer goods and e-commerce industry. Also, owing to the forecasted growth, many players operating in the industry are increasing their investment and are looking for mergers and acquisitions to improve their market presence and cash in this huge wave of demand for high-quality labels.
With that said, there are still some major concerns for the industry. So, let’s analyze these challenges and its possible solutions.
Counterfeiting and its Concerns
From the outside looking in, one might not be able to grasp the growing magnitude of counterfeiting in the industrial labels market. But according to one of the Global Brand Counterfeiting and Trademark Infringement Report, the global impact related to counterfeiting is estimated to be valued at USD 1.95 trillion by this year. Owing to the unprecedented scale of this issue, it is important that companies take extra precautions when it comes to labeling and packaging their products. One of the most effective ways to deal with counterfeiting is to increase the security features of labeling while at the same time ensuring that frequent changes are incorporated into it so that the company can remain one-step ahead of the counterfeiters.
To tackle the threat caused by counterfeiting, modern day labeling suppliers are offering plethora of security options starting from tamper-evident to printed electronics labeling. Going beyond these, manufacturers can also incorporate covert, overt or forensic security features in order to build multiple layers of protection.
RRD, USA is one of the leading players in this segment and the company specializes in offering unique anti-counterfeiting systems that combines both covert and overt security features.
One such unique offering by the company is ‘custom-printed icons’ which can be assessed using an app and by doing so, the product can be verified seamlessly. Aside from that, RRD also offer other anti-counterfeiting solutions such as the use of invisible fluorescent inks that are printed with a specific image which can only be read using a black light.
Mislabeling and Cloud Technology Adoption
During a recent survey conducted on the impact on mislabeling, 76 percent of the survey participants said that every year, over 10 percent of their goods are mislabeled. Other than this, the biggest concern regarding mislabeling is that at times, mislabeling can result in product recalls and a study conducted by Deloitte found that food and beverages manufacturers can lose up to USD 10 million every year due to all the different implications caused though mislabeling. With that said, this is not something that is only happening in the food and beverages industry, medical devices and pharmaceutical manufacturers also report mislabeling issues. Even though, the use of digitized technologies are prevalent in legacy systems in the labeling industry, it is high time that businesses adopt cloud based systems that can not only reduce the time period of the approval process of label designs but it can also help to reduce the errors that can happen to a minimum.
A real-life scenario that further extenuates the enhancement cloud based technologies can bring to the labeling industry is when Domino Printing Sciences, UK had to make changes to the labels for one of their clients owing to the change in mandate regarding barcodes. The said company had over 1000 labels and with a traditional system, changing each of these labels would have taken a significant amount of time. Domino Printing Sciences was able to integrate the label information from their current database and the changes were done within a fraction of the time. Also, apart from cloud technologies, businesses can use IoT to incorporate automated coding systems that can reduce mislabeling errors to a minimum and help when it comes to establishing good label management.
The Growing Demand for Sustainability
Like in most other industries, sustainability is an importance facet in the labeling industry as well and over the last few years, sustainability has become a crucial facet when making purchase decisions. Owing to this, brand owners and retailers make sure that they create packaging and labeling that will fit the designs and other sustainability preferences of the consumer. When it comes to labeling, the major concern regarding sustainability is the fact many label manufacturers fail to focus on the environmental impact caused by the materials used to create labels. Apart from that, the lack of a proper recycling infrastructure in the labeling industry is also hurting its sustainability aspirations.
When it comes to sustainable labels and packaging, Armor, France is a forerunner and the company prioritizes on reducing their carbon footprint to a minimum. The company has set up a full-fledged recycling program for their thermal transfer ribbons which is a crucial facet in the printing process for any type of labels regardless of the materials used. The program titled as ‘RecPET’ is provided to the end users by the company’s resellers and since its launch, the program has received positive feedbacks. And the company is aiming to turn all the waste they collect into new products so that the environmental impact of their new products is also low.
Driven by the rapidly changing and increasing demands from both businesses and customers, labeling industry has grown from traditional flexographic and letterpress printing to toner-based and digital inkjet printing. Going forward, the increasing adoption of automated technologies is set to increase the efficiency of label manufacturers while at the same time reducing the errors. Apart from that, the growing importance of sustainability is also impacting label designs, materials, manufacturing process and recycling mechanisms in the industry.
