Label and packaging manufacturers should educate their customers on the potential of digital printing, according to Alon Bar-Shany, vice-president of HP Indigo.

Shany told viewers of yesterday's HP webinar that while digital printing has made good inroads into the label printing market, 99% of packaging is still produced on conventional presses.

 He added that there is still a perception among brand owners that digital printing is slow and low quality, and that printers need to raise awareness among their customers of its potential.

Shany said: "Most of the top 100 label converters have one or more HP Indigo presses, so there is good momentum in the folding cartons and flexible packaging markets.

"However, converters must talk about the capabilities of digital printing to brand owners and make it clear that it can correspond to their needs in areas such as supply chain cost demand, printing on demand, variable data printing and with environmental initiatives."

Roger Gehrke, digital print manager at German label and packaging manufacturer Rako Group, which was a beta site for the HP Indigo WS6600 digital label press, said that 70% of the ￡173m-turnover company’s jobs that are printed using conventional equipment could easily be moved to digital printing.

He added that the company, whose customers include Procter & Gamble, was running at about 90-95% capacity on its digital presses.

Gehrke agreed that clients in the label and packaging markets needed to be educated on the benefits and added value of personalisation and revealed that only 1-2% of Rako Group's jobs have variable data printing (VDP) requirements.

He said: "I foresee that VDP will make up about 25% of the total volume of labels in the future, which is similar to what we are already seeing in commercial print."