At Siegwerk South Africa, this means working closely with converters to understand the application, substrate, press conditions, filling lines and end user or brand owner requirements before developing or recommending the most appropriate ink or coating.
‘Technology cannot simply be copied from another market and expected to work in South Africa,’ says Ashvika Harisunker, head of technology at Siegwerk. ‘It needs to be adapted to local press conditions, substrates, supply chains and customer requirements. That makes technical collaboration critical.’
Migration and curing flexibility
In food, pharmaceutical and hygiene packaging, migration control is one of the most important technical considerations. Siegwerk’s global low-migration portfolio includes technologies such as SICURA Nutriflex 10, SICURA Nutriflex LEDTec and SICURA Nutriplast 2 New.
These solutions are designed for suitable low migration in indirect food packaging while maintaining printability, adhesion, colour strength and production efficiency. The series covers UV- and LED-curing solutions for flexographic and sheetfed applications.
Dual-cure technology is another area of interest, offering converters greater flexibility when moving between conventional UV and LED-UV curing. Siegwerk’s SICURA Flex Dual Cure series supports this flexibility while offering formulations aligned with the German Printing Ink Ordinance (GIO).
Chemistry for a circular economy
Sustainability is also influencing ink chemistry. Globally, Siegwerk has expanded its NC-free toolbox, including solutions for both lamination and surface printing on flexible polyolefin structures. In 2025, the company introduced NC-free surface-printing solutions for PE and PP in flexographic and gravure applications, supporting packaging designs that improve recyclability.
‘South African converters are adjusting packaging constructions in response to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) requirements and circular-economy objectives,’ says Ashvika. ‘This is influencing packaging design, material selection and how waste is managed.’
One notable global development is the growing use of functional coatings. Siegwerk’s CIRKIT portfolio is designed for circular packaging and includes barrier coatings, heat-seal lacquers and other functional technologies.
These coatings can provide oxygen, moisture and grease resistance, support recyclable mono-material structures, reduce reliance on multilayer constructions and enable the move to fibre-based packaging.
Recent developments include CIRKIT OXYBAR WHITE, which combines oxygen-barrier functionality with white ink in a single printable layer, and CIRKIT NOVASEAL, a heat-seal lacquer portfolio for fibre-based and selected flexible packaging.
‘For South Africa, these technologies open opportunities in areas such as paperisation, flexible packaging, foodservice packaging and mono-material structures, where maintaining barrier and sealing performance is a key technical challenge,’ Ashvika notes.
Beyond colour
Colour management is becoming more closely linked to productivity and waste reduction. Siegwerk offers expanded colour gamut (ECG) technologies across UV-curable, solvent-based and water-based inks, using a fixed extended ink set that includes CMYKOGV. COLORWERK FastMatch Cloud, developed with X-Rite Pantone, integrates formulation, colour correction and quality control into a cloud-based platform.
Across South Africa’s diverse mix of substrates and printing equipment, from new-generation presses to legacy machinery still in operation, technical support is important for successful implementation.
Current technology projects include formulation optimisation, root-cause analysis, customer-specific ink development, colour consistency, sustainable label solutions and the evaluation of alternative packaging structures.
‘The objective is to understand the complete printing process and help the converter achieve the right combination of quality, productivity, regulatory compliance, cost-effectiveness and sustainability,’ says Ashvika.
Siegwerk’s global portfolio reinforces this approach. It includes low-migration systems, NC-free inks, renewable and water-based technologies such as UniNATURE and CIRKIT functional coatings, with innovation focused on addressing packaging challenges.
