Innovative Printing Helps Grow Korean Export Market for Beef Snacks

Award winning, precisely printed Jax Beef Snacks stick packs.

The mastering of an exacting five-step printing process that was formerly thought impossible has won Hamilton's Convex Plastics a printing industry innovation award and helped grow the export sales of a premium range of New Zealand beef snacks.

Convex Plastics' unique ability to print both sides of a trap laminated film in register and provide some of the highest barrier properties available worldwide has enabled Auckland-based Jack Links New Zealand Ltd to successfully launch their popular range of Jax Beef Snacks onto the Korean market.

Convex Plastics won a gold medal for innovation at the 2007 Pride in Print Awards last month for their precisely printed Jax Beef Snacks stick packs. The smartly presented stick packs have enabled Jack Links to rapidly develop a strong sales base in South Korea with their high visual appeal and shelf life.

"The appearance of the pack and the barrier properties have been absolutely vital to make it work in Korea, " says Jack Links Director, Maurice Crosby. "One of the biggest challenges was to make the pack rigid. A lot of stick packs tend to curl and bend and Convex succeeded in keeping ours straight. Our packs have got great visual appeal, no matter how long they've been sitting on the shelf, they still look smart - and they've allowed us to provide a one-year shelf life."

Jax Beef Snacks were launched at the Seoul Food and Hospitality Show in April, and are already proving to be a popular product in South Korean department stores, convenience stores, supermarkets, train stations, home shopping catalogues and on the snack trolleys onboard commuter trains.

Maurice says, "Convex persevered for quite some time to achieve the pack we wanted, and I really believe we've ended up with a pack that's equal to or better than anything else in the world at the moment."
Creating the Jax Beef Snacks packaging was made possible by the re-insertion capabilities provided by Convex Plastics' newest flexographic printing press. This enables the printing of up to eight colours onto the surface of a film in one pass, and the registering of additional prints in up to another eight colours on either the existing print or onto the other side in a second pass.

After month's of extensive trialling Convex Plastics custom-developed a five-step printing process for the Jax Beef Snacks, which enables the slim stick packs to stay rigid. The complicated printing process, which involves two printing passes, two lamination passes and slitting, has zero tolerance for error.

Convex Plastics printing manager, Gary Dillistone says, "We celebrated Convex Plastic's 30th birthday last year by looking back over our history. Our company was built by creating things that everyone thought was impossible and this job shows that we can still do that. This is the tightest registration tolerance we've ever done, and our whole team made it a personal goal to achieve it. Only a handful of companies in the world have the capabilities to do this kind of work and we are very proud to be one of them."

The 2007 Innovation award is the sixth gold medal Convex Plastics has won in the prestigious New Zealand printing industry Pride in Print Awards since 2002.