Hexie embraces end-to-end digital for wine industry

Chinese converter Hexie has established an end-to-end digital production line, investing in digital printing, digital finishing and digital die-cutting equipment - and now discovering how to use this equipment to develop new value-added label products for the local red wine industry.

Founded in 2007, Hexie is located in Changli County, Qinhuangdao City, one of the birthplaces of China’s red wine industry. The company focuses on producing labels, folding cartons and promotional paper bags for wine producers. 

Hexie founder Sun Wanjiang started his career in a local wine producer, specifying and ordering labels and packaging. 

At that time in Qinghuangdao, these products were provided by outside suppliers. Wanjiang saw a great opportunity to fill that gap.

He founded Hexie in 2001. ‘At that time, wine labels were mainly wet glue, printed on sheet offset presses,’ Wanjiang says. 

The company’s first investment, therefore, was in sheet offset printing equipment used to produce folding cartons, promotional paper bags and wet glue labels for wine brands. 

But as self-adhesive label technology progressed, an increasing number of wine brands began to replace wet glue with PS labels. At the same time, the higher efficiency of inline printing equipment attracted Wanjiang’s attention, so the company invested in a Weigang intermittent offset press in 2014.

Starting from a small workshop with one small press and a few workers, Hexie has undergone a rapid expansion driven by the demand for labels and packaging in the region.

‘Our main customers are local red wine brand enterprises, and our turnover and revenue are both are very good,’ Wanjiang says.

However, at some point the rapid development of the red wine industry began to slow down as consumer habits changed. This was felt by Hexie as the company reached its 10th anniversary. 

‘As Chinese consumers changed their wine drinking habits, wine brand owners used labels and packaging as a way of promoting their products, enhancing brand image and optimizing inventory management, all of which placed more demands on label and package printing enterprises,’ Wanjiang shares. ‘Especially for label products, which account for a quarter of our business, there is an increasing demand for personalized, small batch, interaction with end-users, anti-counterfeiting traceability, etc. from our customers. If we use our existing conventional printing equipment, the production of such labels will be time- and material- intensive, also reducing the efficiency of our service to customers.’

These considerations led Wanjiang to make his first move into digital printing.

‘With no plates and no minimum run length, digital technology saved on setup time, workload and material costs. The production cost of digital printing is superior to traditional printing for short-run orders,’ adds Wanjiang.

The first step in Hexie’s digital transformation was investing in DMS 330W digital embellishment equipment at the end of 2023. In April 2024, they installed an HP Indigo 6K and Vorey digital die-cutting equipment.

"As Chinese consumers changed their wine drinking habits, wine brand owners used labels and packaging as a way of promoting their products, enhancing brand image and optimizing inventory management”

Says Wanjiang, ‘Before formally investing in digital printing equipment, we examined a lot of suppliers, and finally chose the HP Indigo 6K. The thing that struck me the most is its printing performance. HP Indigo electronic ink technology is the closest one to match the quality of offset printing which we use mostly now.

‘After detailed analysis, we find that in addition to solving our current small-run and medium-run orders, multi-SKUs and personalized label orders, this device can also handle anti-counterfeiting printing and variable data printing, helping improve the added value of label products.’

Now, Hexie has set up a complete digital printing and finishing line covering the whole process of label production, including automatic inspection equipment from Luster. 

Open house

Following the completion of this investment program, Hexie held an Open Day at the Huaxia Winery in Qinhuangdao to showcase its digital solutions to wine brand customers.

Wang Tangyan, industrial sales manager at HP Indigo China, comments, ‘We not only supply the digital press for converters, but also special applications such as fluorescent inks and variable data printing.’

Wanjiang adds, ‘We do notice that there are differences between conventional printing and digital printing in design and performance. We suggest brand owners should accept such differences for the advantages they can realize with digital printing like shorter run lengths and a short delivery cycle.’.

Hexie’s future development plan sees conventional and digital printing technology continue to complement each other while digital continues to transform Hexie’s operations.