Tobacco Asia

tobaccoasia 39 [Tannpapier GmbH] lated to countries where our customers produce and where they face a high illicit trade incidence." "Furthermore, more regulations are coming into place with regards to bringing the illicit trade un- der control and to have more visibility-of-move- ment of tobacco products." "We started with the first commercial deliver- ies of clear closure labels to Mexico at the begin- ning of 2010," Dr. Lindner recalls, adding that the country had issued a new regulations at that time which required that health warnings be placed on the upper part of cigarette soft packs. As packs tra- ditionally were sealed with paper labels, this sud- denly was no longer possible as they would have partially obscured the warnings. "A perfect solu- tion to that issue were clear closing labels." Only at a later stage did it dawn on TANN Group that clear closure labels potentially also could serve as a security measure for cigarette packs. "Unprinted clear closure labels exhibit a relatively low level of security because they the- oretically can be made of any flat and flexible transparent material, like different polymer films. However, if these labels are being combined with sophisticated and elevated printing effects, the protection level will be tremendously increased," Dr. Lindner elaborates. "On the one hand there is only a limited number of transparent materials available that are suitable for such special-effect printing and on the other hand it requires huge experience to flawlessly print them with those so- phisticated features," he explains. These security features on the labels could therefore be used both by the authorities as well as TANN Group's cus- tomers to check the product integrity. "Our expertise is rotogravure printing technol- ogy, which is suitable for realizing a wide range of outstanding printing effects," Dr. Linder asserts. Apart from utilizing a huge variety of spot col- ors [a.k.a. multi-colors], metallic inks, pearlescent coatings and half-tone designs, even color changes or color shifts, thermo-chrome and UV-active [i.e. fluorescence] functionalities are feasible." And in order to achieve pure holographic or perfectly shiny metallic effects, Dr. Lindner recommends the application of hot foils, a technology widely used in the tipping paper industry that counterfeit- ers find practically impossible to emulate. "Simply speaking, a multi-color printed or hot foil-stamped clear closure label represents a con- siderably more enhanced anti-counterfeiting fea- ture than a simple [paper] label with a single-color printed logo," Dr. Linder insists. However, he also admits that the industry so far generally applies clear closure labels only for their main purpose of making packs regulation-compliant, but not nec- essarily as a direct security feature. "As an indirect security feature, yes, as TANN Group is able to supply multi-color printed labels." Taggants ("virtual fingerprints") are yet an- other security technology that has been success- fully employed by TANN Group for some time. "Taggant systems are very valuable covert fo- rensic tools for brand protection and identifica- tion," confirms Ralf Schaffranke, sales manager at TANN Germany, a member of the TANN Group. Most of the currently common Taggant systems work on the principle of up-converting phosphorus and converting invisible infrared light into visible colored light. By contrast, TANN Group offers taggant technologies that work on the basis of uniformly doped, rare-earth materi- als and unique spectral signatures that can only be detected with specifically programmed readers. "TANN Germany has been supplying this covert authentication feature for many years and is of- fering it for different products, like tear tapes, for example," Schaffranke says. TANN Group's tear tapes are in fact ideal car- riers for overt, semi-covert, and covert security features, like visible and non-visible special inks or taggants that can help protect brand integrity. "We have developed and are providing for the markets bespoke combinations of overt security features such as sophisticated print designs including mi- cro text and fine-line printing, as well as security inks like 'color-shifting' OVI inks that are near-to- [Tannpapier GmbH] [Tannpapier GmbH] Tear tapes supplied by Tannpapier Tannpapier-manufactured tear tape with metallic, color-shifting security effects

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