Labeling Innovations from Weber

As a typical brewery, you are constantly on the lookout for innovative ways to make your products stand out, whether it's in a retail setting or sold from a tap room cooler. A captivating label that distinguishes you from the competition is key to attracting attention and expanding your customer base. Let's face it, more often than not, a consumer's choice is influenced by the label itself.

While there are many ways to create impressive looking labels, like using metallic papers and exotic label materials, they tend to be expensive. And breweries are always looking to keep their label price at the magic <$0.10/label threshold. Right?

Weber Packaging recently started helping breweries use a simple, economical process to make their labels stand out. It might even get your customers to play with your label and show others.

It’s called Cast & Cure. It’s a cost-effective in-line process that creates a shiny reflective area on your label using UV coating and a specialty film. And it doesn’t really add much to your basic label cost.

As 2019 winds down, I just thought I would share some of the more interesting labels that we have printed this year. Weber prints digital labels for customers in a wide variety of markets and some of the designs are outstanding. 

Our digital label presses are constantly printing cool labels for everything from start-up companies to established industries looking to improve the look of their brand. So take a look at these gems and learn about the companies they represent! We like to support all our customers, large and small.

1. Hair of the Ferret - Crown Point, IN

A former Weber label customer, Dan and Sally Homner, are those kind of people who have the ability to turn a hobby that they love into a successful business. Hair of the Ferret Gourmet Salsa is a family-owned company that takes great pride in making the best salsa and hot sauces on the planet. Fresh ingredients (up to 12 varieties of peppers!) make all the difference.

Being huge salsa lovers, Dan and Sally started making salsa for friends and family. People loved it and after many accolades, they decided to take it to market in 1997. Literally. They took it to a Farmers Market and it was such a big hit that they decided to start a full-time business making salsa.

The name is is a tongue-in-cheek suggestion from one of their friends. It's such an outrageous name that people remember it and it stuck.

In 2018 they got a price increase from their current label vendor and started looking for a new label company. They also had a new product, Fred's Red hot sauce. We provided some cool samples of different label materials that would make their brand stand out from the competitors on the store shelf. 

Dan liked the idea of the metallic label material and he had our graphics department make his artwork come to life. The results speak for themselves. If you are a hot sauce collector, better get this one on your list! Available online at decent prices.

Digitally-printed labels save time & money on short label runs.

HP Indigo presses are used for printing labels, commercial literature, direct mail, photos, publications, flexible packaging, folding cartons and all kinds of specialty printing. The ability to print without films and plates enables digital production to create personalized short runs, changing text, images and jobs without having to stop the press. This print technology can produce products for a wide variety of applications with extreme precision and productivity. Weber Packaging Solutions has a couple of the HP Indigo label presses that have been consistently producing high-resolution labels for years.

In digital printing, an image is sent directly to the press using digital files such as PDFs and those from graphics software such as Illustrator and InDesign. These artwork files are created either by the customer, their agency, or an in-house Graphics Team like at Weber Packaging Solutions. 

This eliminates the need for a typical offset printing plate. The digital technology has a higher cost per page than the more traditional offset printing methods. However, digital pricing is counterbalanced by the cost-saving that occurs in avoiding all the technical steps and time needed to make film , printing plates, and press set-up time.  This print method allows for on-demand printing, short turn around times, and even  modifications on-the-fly of variable data on a label.

The Indigo technology is based on HP ElectroInk which uses small color particles suspended in imaging oil. The ink forms a very thin and smooth plastic layer on the media surface. The fact that these particles are so small ensures that the printed image does not mask the underlying surface roughness/gloss of the media, as can be possible with some toner-based processes, bringing Indigo printing closer in appearance to conventional offset lithography, whereby ink is actually absorbed into the paper.