The low-migration aqueous ink, which will go into mass production later this year, complies with stringent primary food contact regulations, including Swiss Ordinance 817.023.21 and European Commission Regulation 1935/2004.

The ink has been specially formulated to work with inline (via a bridge) and nearline UV or aqueous coating.

The Jet Press 720S, which was launched in 2014, has already been widely used to produce secondary food packaging as well as packaging for the pharmaceutical, and cosmetics, household and personal care markets.

Fujifilm said that with the new capability, food manufacturers will be able to more profitably print offset quality, customised packaging in much shorter and more frequent runs.

“In Europe we have three packaging converters using the Jet Press solely for packaging and probably over half of our commercial print customers also do some packaging, so it makes sense to do this,” said Fujifilm digital printing and press systems product manager Mark Stephenson.

“A food manufacturer making small quantities of things may not know how many they’re going to produce until they actually start producing them and find out what the yield is. They will therefore appreciate ordering small quantities at the time.”

The new ink will be supplied in 10-litre containers and existing Jet Press 720S users will be able to convert to it without needing to adapt their machines.