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Annual ReportEuPIA, the European Printing Ink As-sociation, working under the umbrel-la of CEPE, represents and protects the common interest of the European printing ink business and promotes the image of the industry in the public. EuPIA provides a forum for discussion and decision-making regarding issues of specific interest to the printing ink industry. EuPIA members also partici-pate in CEPE working groups dealing with issues of general interest to the wider CEPE membership.

6th EuPIA Annual Conference Satisfying participation in times of a crisis in Berlin on March 5&6, 2009

The EuPIA Annual Conference 2009 in Berlin (Germany) showed a satis-fying participation in times of a crisis. 66 attendees listened early March to an intense and interesting programme which was linked to the core issues of the industry in the first half of 2009: “How to react to the economic crisis” and “Food packaging: critical factors, customer expectations, market needs and compliance issues”. The EuPIA statistics, pricing strategies, REACH, Carbon Footprint and the new EuPIA crisis communication concept com-pleted the schedule.

Herbert Forker (Siegwerk), Chairman of EuPIA, opened day 1 and summa-rized the year 2008 in retrospect. Mar-tin Cellerier (Sun Chemical) presented the actual figures which were domina-ted by losses in all areas. Afterwards two external consultants reflected stra-tegic opportunities to overcome the

decrease in sales and profitability: Eric Bartels (McKinsey) introduced “How have recent trends changed the market environment” and Karl-Heinz Sebasti-an (Simon Kucher&Partners) focused on “How to protect profitability in a volatile environment”. A panel discussion on “Learnings for the ink industry”, led by Peter Hei-merzheim (Siegwerk), concluded the first part of day 1.

Afterwards, actual developments of REACH were presented by Silvio Bassi (Flint Group). Sylvaine Cortada (Pris-ma Presse, G+J Group) introduced changes and opportunities of the Car-bon Foot Print in Publishing. In the fi-nal panel of day 1, Jo Watkins from Sun Chemical focused on changes and risks for the ink industry in these areas.

Accompanying the official programme, the hosting company Siegwerk had organized a superb reception over the roofs of Berlin: The German Reichstag was an excellent location for the par-ticipants to network, chat and eat. In his honour speech Herbert Forker said “Thank you” to Chris Whitehead (Flint Group), who will be retiring next year, for his dedication to EuPIA, particular-ly over the last three years of his chair-manship of the PIFOOD committee.

Dirk Aulbert (Flint), EuPIA Vice-Chair-man opened day 2. After the presenta-tion on EuPIAs new crisis communica-tion concept (by Eric van de Meerssche (IVP) a “Food Packaging Supply Chain Forum” took place – moderated by Tho-mas Reiner (Berndt & Partner).

The forum was driven by the idea to reflect all parts of the food packaging supply chain to find out, which role and responsibility the dedicated mar-ket participants live and how all part-ners could strengthen their coopera-tion in terms of communication and interaction.

The ink industry was represented by Chris Whitehead with his speech on: “Printing inks for Food Packaging – Meeting the market needs”. Jan Duff-hues (Mars Nederland) talked on “Criti-cal factors in the Supply Chain for Brand owners”. Philipp Baumman (Tetra Pak International) pointed out “What Tetra Pak expects from its ink suppliers”. Ma-ria van Liere (BASF Netherlands) fina-lized the session from the raw material supplier perspective (“Compliance De-claration – How do you get it”).

Again, a panel discussion with all speakers and a conclusion note of Her-bert Forker closed the conference day.

The EuPIA Council and member companies felt the Berlin meeting was a great success. The combinati-on of top-level keynote presentations, highly relevant industry information and networking opportunities made the two days in the German capital a “mandatory event” for decision-ma-kers in the ink industry.

Announcement of the 7th EuPIA Annual Conference in 2010The next Annual Conference will be held on 11/12 March, 2010 in Ghent (Belgium), more details to follow.

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Printing Inks for Food Packaging

The printing ink industry is commit-ted to contribute its share to the food packaging supply chain aimed at en-hancing consumer safety.In this respect, the relevant EuPIA Committee “Printing Inks for Food Packaging” continued to work to-wards assisting EuPIA member com-panies and the food packaging supply chain to fulfil their respective respon-sibilities.

The Committee issued or updated a number of documents among which the following are of key importance:

Information leaflet: Printing Inks for Food Packaging

EuPIA Guideline on Printing Inks applied to the Non-Food Contact Surface of Food Packaging Mate-rials and Articles

Good Manufacturing Practices for the Production of Packaging Inks formulated for Use on the Non-Food Contact Surfaces of Food Packaging and Articles intended to come into Contact with Food

Customer Information Note regar-ding the use of sheetfed offset inks and varnishes for the manufacture of food packaging

Model “Statement of Composition” for Food Packaging Inks

Checklists for the Technical Data Sheets of EuPIA member companies

EuPIA Position Statement on the GMP Regulation (EC) No 2023/ 2006

Most of these documents are availab-le on the EuPIA public website at www.eupia.org.

Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of the inventory list of substances used in the manu-facture of food packaging inks.

This has been done with the help of the Food Contact Additive Sector (FCA) working under the umbrella of CE-FIC, who had established a system – (DOL – Database Online) – designed to assemble all the substances used in suppliers’ product formulations, whilst ensuring that confidentiality is safeguarded. Access to DOL was also granted to non-FCA members.ETAD provided the list of pigment additives, and assisted in checking the entries for colourants.

Findings of 4-MBP in certain foodstuffs

Early February 2009, Germany had warned against high levels of 4-Me-thyl Benzophenone (4-MBP) in some cereal products manufactured by a Belgian food producer. 4-MBP was reported to have migrated from the printed carton package through an in-ner plastic pouch into the foodstuff. The alert had been notified in the Ra-pid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the European Union. 4-MBP may be used as photo initiator in certain UV printing inks and coa-tings. However, EuPIA members do not consider this photoinitiator suita-ble for use in UV cured inks and coa-tings for food packaging in view of potential migration concerns, unless there is a functional barrier present, or where the converter has carried out tests which confirm that the migrati-on is in line with the limitations set out in the annex of GMP Regulation (EC) No 2023/2006.

EuPIA reacted immediately after the RASFF alert became known, closely liaised with the affected European organisations ECMA and CIAA, and contributed to a proper representation of the facts in meetings with the Eu-ropean Commission.Following a request for rapid advice from the European Commission, the

European Food Safety Agency had published – on 4 March 2009 – a first statement on the risks arising from the levels of 4-MBP found. An up-dated EFSA evaluation was published on 14 May 2009, the conclusion of which is that short term consumption of the contaminated breakfast cereal should not pose a risk to people at current levels.

Nonetheless, EuPIA and its members take the issue seriously, and work – to-gether with the partners in the Packaging Ink Joint Industry Task Force – towards an improvement of the exchange of relevant information along the pa-ckaging supply chain, aimed at pre-venting future risks of food contami-nation arising from migration.

Occupational Safety and Risk Assessment (OSRA)

OSRA objectives are to support mem-ber companies of EuPIA and other sectors of CEPE, in particular SMEs, and customers/printers/applicators to operate at the highest possible level of plant and occupational safety. Gui-dance established by OSRA includes conformity with any European or re-levant national guidelines.

The group operates by Sharing information and expe-

rience following the principle of transparency in plant safety, oc-cupational safety, occupational medicine and incidents between all companies, which is an essen-tial activity to improve health and safety at the workplace inside and outside the printing ink industry.

Assessing the risks resulting from the use of hazardous substances

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Protective Coatings

The Product Directive (2004/42/EC) is under review. See the article on page 6 in this annual report. In anti-cipation of an extension of products falling under the Product Directive, the EU Sector Group of Protective Coatings did preparative work in the past years to come with a realistic proposal for the sector.

CEPE’s proposal that was submit-ted early 2009 to the consultants from the European Commission will achieve a reduction of VOC emissi-ons of over 5 kilo tonnes per year in the EU.

Intumescent Coatings

To ensure that these types of coat-ings have a harmonized standard for inclusion in the Construction Product

Directive, the EU Sector Group has installed a dedicated Technical Com-mittee of member experts working on the input and the liaison with the CEN/TC 127 and other bodies.

Considering commitment to Res-ponsible Care®/Coatings Care® and Product Stewardship

Incident reporting by all EuPIA members in a standardised fashion

Benchmarking HSE performances in a standardised fashion

To help members in developing risk reduction strategies, OSRA drafts guidelines for ink and coatings ma-

nufacturers and for printers or indus-trial coating applicators that could be of three types:1. Alerts (circulated in the group, and published thereafter) To date, 37 alerts dealing with chemicals (solvents, nitrocellulose) or handling (e.g. forklifts) have been published.

2. Safety guidelines for ink/coating manufacturers restricted for use by EuPIA/CEPE membersIn addition to the Guidelines on the safe handling of solvents and of nit-rocellulose in manufacturing, an up-dated guideline on the safe handling of

UV and EB printing inks was issued.These documents are available on the EuPIA extranet (members area of www.eupia.org). 3. General guidelines for customers/ users (printers, coaters)There are the Guidelines for the safe handling of flammable liquids and the Guidelines for the Safe Use of Cellu-lose Nitrate Printing Inks and Related Products.The Guidelines for Printers on the Safe Use of Energy Curing Printing Inks and Related Products is under revision.These are available on the CEPE and EuPIA public websites.

Inclusion of Protective Coatings in the Product Directive