The manufacturer said the new Indigo 6900, which is commercially available with immediate effect, increases the addressable label market while offering higher revenue per metre.

Features include Pack Ready for Labels, for the production of high-resistance labels for food, household, chemical, and pharma labels, and integration with the HP Indigo Gem single-pass digital embellishment line for labels, which HP will start beta testing in March.

Indigo ElectroInk Silver, which delivers metallic effects across a wide colour gamut similar to Pantone 877, and ElectroInk Invisible Blue and Yellow, which is visible under UV light for brand protection and promotional labels, have also been unveiled for use with the machine.

Furthermore, HP said the Production Pro digital front-end (DFE) is included with the Indigo 6900 and will roll out this year to the entire Indigo labels and packaging portfolio.

Featuring five times faster RIP power and the Esko Color Engine, this DFE is said to provide extensive productivity and scalability for continuous digital production.

HP also provided an update on its Drupa-announced PageWide C500 sheetfed, single-pass press.

The company said the machine will be fully integrated with Kiwiplan, an MIS provider for corrugated and rigid packaging, to keep it running at optimum capacity while helping customers to save time and costs through production and supply chain efficiency.

Five customers in Europe and the US have already purchased the PageWide C500, which uses HP’s single-pass thermal inkjet technology, and the first unit will ship next month.

The manufacturer said the C500 provides a cost-effective digital alternative for offset lamination and flexo production, delivering offset quality direct-to-board with mainstream productivity on both coated and uncoated papers, and packaging with vibrant graphics.

The press uses HP’s CV150 water-based inks, which contain no UV-reactive chemistries, enabling corrugated converters to print primary and secondary food-related packaging without an additional barrier.

HP has also announced the commercial availability of the Pack Ready Laminator for its Indigo 20000 flexible packaging press. Supplied by Karlville, HP said this eliminates the use of adhesives, which allows for immediate time-to-market of Indigo digitally printed flexible packaging.

The Indigo 30000 has also been upgraded, with increased productivity, to enable dozens of folding carton jobs per day and up to one million B2 sheets per month. New security features include micro-text and micro QR-codes, and there are also new automatic mass customisation and personalisation capabilities.

Finally, HP said its Indigo 12000 HD digital press, which was unveiled at Print 17 last September, is now commercially available, and that the previously revealed Indigo 50000 is now accompanied by a robust finishing system for the cost-effective printing of offset jobs.

HP Indigo head of strategy and business management Yogev Barak told PrintWeek: “Consumer habits have changed tremendously in the last few years, prompting brands to develop new marketing strategies that are based on more varied SKUs, hyper-customised pieces, more frequent and shorter runs.

“Our customers cannot continue to use the practices they used 10 and 20 years ago to succeed in today’s market. Today’s market demands require solutions that are automated, simplified, more productive, and more cost-effective.”

He added: “The new technology solutions are a direct response to today’s market challenges. They build on our renowned Liquid Electrophotography technology and on our proven track record, but more than filling gaps in our portfolio, these solutions help our customers adapt and evolve based on today’s market trends and challenges.

“We want to enable our customers to grow and increase profitability. These new solutions allow our customers to be able to print any application, speed time to market, increase production efficiency, and stand out with outstanding print quality.”

Packaging is one of HP’s current major focus areas and, accordingly, it plans to make the most of the new Digital Corrugated Experience at Fespa 2018 in Berlin in May.

Speaking to PrintWeek at the FespaFest event last week, HP head of marketing Graphics Solutions Business EMEA, Michael Smetana, said: “We will mobilise our customer base to come to the new corrugated feature, where we will have a separate small stand in the hall dedicated to this sector.

“We will talk about the PageWide C500 and the PageWide Web Press T1100S and we will have experts and material there to take the conversation forward.”