Mike Fairley

Times are tough; there’s no doubt about it. Costs are rising, competition is fierce and the economy is in a tailspin (or nose dive, depending on your perspective). “This was a difficult year for the [tag and label] business due not only to macroeconomic issues, including high energy costs and continuing high raw material inflation, but also because of growing competition to labels and tags in the packaging industry itself,” noted Corey Reardon, president and CEO of AWA Alexander Watson Associates, McLean, Va. The rising costs of materials—across the board—are at the top of most printers’ list of issues. A majority of tag and

By Mike Fairley, global label industry expert The future potential and growth for labels will not so much be about the printed content and presentation, but increasingly about making labels cleverer, smarter and more intelligent. Why is the marketplace actively looking for smarter, more intelligent label solutions? There are many diverse answers: • To aid distribution, handling and storage operations • To keep food fresher longer in transit, on store shelves and in consumers’ refrigerators • To indicate damage or shocks to packs and goods in transit • To show product deterioration with food and pharmaceuticals • To help asset management and assist returns