Leading metal packaging manufacturer Crown has announced a partnership with Velox. The two companies have decided to pool their expertise in order to increase new possibilities for major brands wishing to increase product offerings, as well as for smaller producers taking advantage of the benefits of fully recyclable beverage cans.

Velox is an innovative developer and manufacturer of direct-to-shape digital decoration solutions to provide beverage brands with revolutionary digital decoration technology for straight wall and necked aluminum cans. They also create greater branding options with run speeds five times faster than existing digital solutions and patented features, including the ability to print up to 14 colors and simultaneous embellishments such as gloss, matte and emboss on nearly the entire surface of the can.

Dan Abramowicz, Crown’s Executive Vice President of Technology and Regulatory Affairs confirms, “The dynamic, high-speed solution we’re introducing with Velox makes these benefits more accessible to brands of all sizes and across multiple product categories. From speed to quality to design features, the technology truly pushes the limits of digital printing for beverage cans.

Among the new features of this new digital decoration for two beverage cans is an operating speed of up to 500 cans per minute, a significantly higher rate than the previous limits of 90 cans per minute for digitally printed beverage cans of comparable quality.

In addition, this innovative technology also prints effectively on the can surface with or without a white base coat, streamlining production and allowing the use of translucent inks and or metallic substrate to shine through graphics when desired. In addition, it allows the printing of images, for the first time, on both the can neck and the ringer, which increases brand real estate and consumer appeal.

“Never before has the beverage market realized the speeds or design capabilities that our direct-to-form digital decoration solution now offers for metal beverage cans,” says Marian Cofler, CEO and co-founder of Velox who adds that “the revolutionary technology will move the industry needle and redefine what is possible in beverage packaging. design and production.”

The development of the digital printing machine is now complete. Commercial can production using the technology is planned for 2022, following completion of pilot testing at Crown’s Global R&D Centre in the UK.