Suntory Beverage & Food uses Asahi Kasei water-washable plates for labels

Asahi Kasei Corp, parent company of Asahi Photoproducts and headquartered in Tokyo, has announced that Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd, also headquartered in Tokyo, has switched to AWP water-washable flexographic plates for the printing of beverage labels in Japan on its 550 mL PET bottles. This is the first time AWP plates have been used for printing labels in the beverage industry in Japan.

In implementing this next-generation flexo printing technology, Asahi Kasei collaborated with Fuji Seal, Inc. According to research by Fuji Seal, this is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions by approximately 30% compared to the plate technology that had previously been used.

The water-washable plates adopted for label printing at Suntory Beverage & Food are now used at its Suntory Kyushu Kumamoto Plant, where solvent-washable plates had previously been used.

Asahi Kasei AWP water-washable plates eliminate the use of organic solvents with the platemaking process shown above.

Top image credit: iStock.com/cofotoisme