More than 500 guests attended the celebration, held at Düsseldorf’s Areal Böhler industrial park, which dates back to 1914 and is now an event space. Landa chartered two planes to bring in all the Landa employees not already working at Drupa to be at the event.

Landa staff created a “highlights reel” charting Landa’s life from his childhood in Canada, through the launches of Indigo and Landa to the present day.

Senior industry executives including KBA chief executive and Drupa president Claus Bolza-Schünemann and EFI chief executive Guy Gecht were in attendance, as well as former colleagues from Indigo including Alon Bar-Shany, the general manager of HP’s Indigo division, who said: “Without Benny there would be no digital printing industry and no Drupa because it would have died a long time ago if it had just been about offset.”

Bar-Shany presented Landa with a tabletop, working model of the original Indigo E-Print digital press.

In an emotional, entertaining and inspiring speech, Landa said that he was “overwhelmed by the love and warmth he had felt all day”.

He said: “In business people don’t talk about love, they talk about business things, about goals and objectives. Not for me. I love the people I work with. And I feel so blessed that people have believed in me my whole life.”

Landa also admitted that he had been “bereft” after selling Indigo to HP in 2001, and hadn’t fully thought about how it would affect him.

“This thing of imaging and printing has been in my blood since I was a child, and those few years when I was not in printing and didn’t have Indigo, I was bereft.”

However, he said he was “over it now” and described the change of ownership as “the best thing in the world for Indigo, the company and the country [Israel].”

He said that Landa Labs’ subsequent discovery of nano pigments, and realising their potential for digital printing, had been like a “God-given gift”.

German entrepreneur Susanne Klatten, a major shareholder in Landa Digital Printing investor Altana, also visited Drupa this week.

“Taking her to see [HP] Indigo my heart burst with pride – the largest stand in all of Drupa,” Landa said.  

He concluded his speech by saying: “I will forever be grateful to all these dear friends – from Canada, from Indigo, and from the Landa companies – for the faith you have in me. I love you all and this is the greatest celebration I could have.”

Landa’s family also paid tribute to his qualities as a husband, father and grandfather.

He was also presented with a giant cake.