Toyo Ink Arets Announces Upgraded UV Flexo Ink Lineup

NIEL, BelgiumToyo Ink Arets N.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Toyo Ink Group, introduced recently an expanded product lineup geared up as Steraflex, a new generation of UV flexo inks for label and packaging applications. Now available in two grades—Steraflex and low migration Steraflex FOOD—the latest product portfolio from Toyo Ink Arets provides a complete range of process inks, opaque white and mixing bases to meet the growing global demand for UV flexo solutions. Both inks are designed to excel on today’s high speed flexo presses, bringing spectacular speed, efficiency and economy to the flexo printing operation.

Steraflex’s advanced material design allows flexo printers to better leverage the capabilities of high resolution anilox rolls that require inks of superior fluidity, stability and color intensity. The product delivers superb ink transfer from the high resolution anilox and excellent lay down on a wide variety of substrates, resulting in a more vibrant and true to life image quality that can rival offset print for labels.

What’s more, Steraflex’s high speed curing ability and good adhesion characteristics makes it the ideal solution for a wide range of applications including self adhesive labels and tags, shrink sleeves, flexible packaging and cartons.

Steraflex FOOD for Safe Packaging

New to this year’s lineup is Steraflex FOOD, a UV flexo ink system that exhibits low migration and low odor properties. It is specially formulated to support food label printers and packaging converters achieve desired print performance results while respecting EuPIA guidelines and materials migration limits listed in the Swiss Ordinance.

Based on a low migration polymeric photoinitiator system with minimized use of small molecules, Steraflex FOOD is not only safe for food packaging but also exhibits excellent flow, stability and imaging capabilities. It is ideal for primary food packaging, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other sensitive applications where high quality print and low migration potential are imperative.

“Recently, ensuring food safety and hygiene has been a priority topic as food packaging converters and brand owners are becoming increasingly aware of environmental health and food safety concerns,” said You Yabe, president of Toyo Ink Arets. “At Toyo Ink Arets, we understand the industry’s need to address environmental and potential chemical migration risks in the packaging structure of consumer products. Steraflex FOOD has been developed to help address these challenges, allowing very low odor and migration levels while offering the highest print quality possible.”

Both Steraflex and Steraflex FOOD are formulated without ITX, Benzophenone and VOCs, making them an environmentally friendly choice for today’s pressroom. These products, manufactured at Toyo Ink Arets’ state of the art facility in Europe, are now available globally.

Steraflex makes its Brazil market debut today at the Toyo Ink stand 35 at Label Latinoamerica 2015. The updated Steraflex lineup will also be featured in the Toyo Ink Arets stand at Hall 7, C46 at Labelexpo Europe 2015 in Brussels in late September.