Hexie enhances digital printing services with HP Indigo

Hexie, a Chinese wine label and packaging specialist, has held an Open Day event at Huaxia Winery in Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, North China. The company showcased its latest digital printing and finishing capabilities to about 80 guests, including wine brand owners, suppliers, converters and industry media.

Founded in 2007, Hexie is located in Changli County, Qinhuangdao City, one of the birthplaces of China's dry red wine. The company focuses on producing labels, folding boxes and paper bags for wines. In April 2024, Hexie invested in an HP Indigo 6K Digital Press and Vorey digital die-cutting equipment to accelerate its digital transformation and development.

Sun Wanjiang worked in a wine manufacturing company for several years, where he was also involved with the labels and packaging aspect of this market. At that time, suppliers outside of Hebei Province manufactured all wine packaging. He was very optimistic about this industry and founded Hexie in 2007.

‘At that time, wine labels mainly used wet glue label technology, using sheet offset presses. An increasing number of wine brands use self-adhesive label technology, so we invested in a Weigang intermittent offset printing equipment in 2014,’ said Wanjiang.

To respond to the increasing requirements of short orders, demand for shorter delivery time and zero inventory from clients, Wanjiang invested in digital printing and finishing technology.

‘With no plates and no printing run limit, digital technology saved us the setup time, workload and material costs. The production cost of digital printing is superior to traditional printing for short-run orders,’ added Wanjiang.

The first step in Hexie's digital transformation was investing in DMS 330W digital efficiency equipment at the end of 2023, then purchasing an HP Indigo 6K and Vorey digital die-cutting equipment. The company is also equipped with Luster automatic inspection equipment.

‘Before the investment, we investigated a wide range of equipment and finally decided to purchase an HP Indigo 6K, mainly guided by its printing quality,’ said Wanjiang. ‘The performance of the electronic ink technology is closest to the quality of offset printing, which is the traditional printing technology we are using now.

‘What surprised us even more was that after exploring all capabilities, we discovered that the HP Indigo 6K could not only help with our small and medium-run orders, multiple-SKUs, and personalized label orders but also expand our capabilities to anti-counterfeiting and variable data printing, which instantly added value to our label products.’

Currently, Hexie manufactures labels and packaging for major wine producers in China, including COFCO Huaxia, Moutai and others. The label business accounts for a quarter of the company's total revenue.