Inline inkjet system cuts food packaging waste

Konica Minolta and four Japanese engineering partners have developed a food-packaging system that combines water-based inkjet printing with a horizontal flow wrapper, removing the need for conventional printing plates and applied labels during short-run and high-mix production.

The system was developed with Fuji Machinery, Fuji Pack System, Marking System Technology, and DAC Engineering, combining the mechanical packaging platform, inkjet printer, print-inspection technology, inks, primer, and printhead engineering in one production arrangement. It received the Japan Star Award at the Japan Packaging Contest 2026, although the more useful development for manufacturers is the integration of printing directly into the wrapping process.

Food factories increasingly have to handle more SKUs, promotional variants, language versions, shorter product runs, and more frequent artwork changes. Conventional gravure-printed film remains effective at high volume, but every design requires a printing plate and sufficient pre-printed film to justify setup and inventory, making short campaigns disproportionately expensive and waste-prone.

The new approach moves part of that printing operation onto the packaging machine. An inkjet printer incorporated into the flow wrapper prints directly onto the film as the pack is produced, allowing packaging and printing to occur within the same machine sequence. Removing the separate plate-making stage changes the economics of smaller batches because manufacturers are less dependent on holding dedicated stocks of pre-printed film for every variant.

Fuji Machinery developed the horizontal flow wrapper for the food application, with group company Fuji Pack System handling sales of the wrapper. Marking System Technology developed the inkjet printer, DAC Engineering contributed image-inspection technology for the printed information, and Konica Minolta supplied the water-based ink, primer, and inkjet-head technology used on the film.

Bringing digital printing directly onto flexible packaging introduces several engineering constraints at once. The substrate is being tensioned, transported, formed, sealed, and cut while print position and image quality must remain stable at production speed. Adhesion, drying, registration, and inspection therefore have to be managed as part of the packaging process rather than treated as a separate print operation.

Konica Minolta uses low-odour water-based inks with primer formulations intended to improve adhesion to film, while the inkjet printhead has been optimised for stable jetting of the water-based formulation. Black, red, and yellow are among the available colours. The objective is to provide sufficiently high-definition printing without returning to a gravure plate whenever artwork changes.

Long production campaigns still favour established pre-printed film economics. The target application is high-mix, small-lot manufacturing, where changeovers and obsolete printed stock can account for a disproportionate share of material, downtime, and working capital.

Portfolio fragmentation has made that problem more common. A single base food product may be sold in different pack counts, retailer variants, seasonal designs, export languages, or promotional formats, with each version creating its own printed-film requirement. Forecast error can leave material unusable when a promotion ends, artwork changes, or an SKU is withdrawn.

Direct printing postpones part of that product differentiation until the packaging operation. Konica Minolta says the system can reduce film waste associated with changeovers and discontinued products compared with gravure printing, while also reducing consumption of printing plates, labels, and thermal-transfer ribbons. The operational gain is therefore tied to inventory reduction and changeover control as much as to the material claim.

Removing applied labels can simplify lines where labels are currently used to differentiate otherwise common packs. Each applicator introduces reels, consumables, setup, verification, and another potential stoppage point. Inline print does not remove control requirements; it shifts more of them into digital artwork management, printer reliability, and automated inspection.

DAC Engineering’s inspection role is important because printed information on food packs can carry production and compliance consequences. Product identity, dates, batch information, ingredients, or market-specific content may all require verification depending on the application. An inline digital process only earns its place if the required information can be confirmed accurately at packaging speed.

The technology fits a broader movement towards faster, software-led changeovers. Mechanical packaging equipment has increasingly adopted recipe control, tool-less adjustments, automated settings, and more flexible product handling, while artwork can remain constrained by externally printed film and label stock. Integrating printing with the wrapper removes one of those external dependencies, provided digital print performance can keep pace with machine throughput.

The jointly developed system is due to be displayed at Tokyo Pack in October, where packaging users can assess line speed, print area, substrate compatibility, ink use, cleaning, maintenance, artwork integration, and inspection performance under repeated changeovers. Those parameters will determine whether the concept remains concentrated in specialist short-run applications or moves into a broader section of food packaging.

The engineering direction is credible even before that commercial verdict is known. Flexible manufacturing increasingly depends on postponing product-specific decisions until later in the process, and packaging artwork has remained one of the more stubborn early commitments. Moving printing onto the wrapper reduces that commitment, replacing plates, labels, and dedicated film stocks with a system whose value will ultimately be measured in changeover time, waste, uptime, and the consistency of the printed pack leaving the machine.