Thermochromic Ink and Beer Labels

I was having a cold Coors Light the other day and I noticed that their labels now have a portion that is cold activated, using what is technically known as thermochomic inks. Now, we obviously don't print Coors Light labels here, nor can we print thermochromic ink, but it is an interesting development in label printing technology.

If you want to learn more about the Coors Light labels check out this article from Packaging World. Basically it works like this. The blue ink on the label here (the mountains and the text above them) is actually white thermochromic ink that turns blue when the temperature reaches around 44 degrees. I actually tested this out and put my finger on the mountains and sure enough the ink went back to white again as the warmth of my finger changed the color of the ink. When I removed my finger the ink changed again as the cold temperature of beer returned the mountains to blue.

It is good to see a large company like Coors pushing the envelope a little when it comes to their product labels. In any competitive market such as beer it is important to try different ideas in order to stand out from the crowd.

Comments

[Dr Adrian Steele]

Hi Peter

An interesting post on thermochromic labels, albeit probably a wet glue type label. We've spent quite a lot of time in the past year looking at thermochromic inks as a specialised area, and enjoying one or 2 sucesses in the field with them.

once you've decided if you want reversible or irreversible inks, the core problem you have in our experience is pigment density. The inks are best applied by screen for density reasons, and flexo can be used, but sometimes is just too "thin" to be usefully visible. There is a table of colour effects here if you are interested:
http://www.selfadhesivelabels.com/thermochromic_labels.html

Its a difficult area for us using 4 different printing techniques, I think it would be a hard nut to crack for HP using digital offset!

[peterrenton]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your comments and including the link for our readers. Yes, I am sure that the Coors Light label is a wet glue application like most mass produced beer labels. Great to see you have had some successes with it in this challenging area.

It sounds like a challenging process, and you are right one that the HP-Indigo would find rather difficult, if not impossible.

Regards, Peter

[Bill Randall]

Hi Peter,
Only last week I noticed that Tooheys New cans here in Australia have started using the same ink. However their print is actually straight onto the cans. So that would be screen print I guess. It is an interesting concept though, and as you say it is all about getting the product noticed.
I hope I see you guys in Chicago.

[peterrenton]

Hi Bill,

That is interesting. I am not sure what they do to print directly on the can, as you say it is probably some kind of screen print. I believe that screen printing works well for these kinds of inks. Maybe we will see thermochromic ink become more popular in the cold beverage market.

Regards, Peter

[Martin]

The blue thermochromic ink is being more widely used. In Brazil it has been used on beer bottle paper labels for about a year now, and recently has been printed onto the aluminium cans as well. I would be interested in knowing the chemical structure of this thermochromic dye. A number of chemical companies around the world sell these materials but they do not give information on the chemical structure of this interesting material on their web sites.

[John Davis]

Guys - CTI is the provider of thermochromic ink for beer/beverage cans globally. We are the only company in the world who makes a thermochromic ink that will print on a beverage can at standard line speeds.

Metal decorating is essentially and offset printing process. CTI makes thermochromic inks for metal decorating, offset, screen, flexo, and gravure printing processes. We are currently competing for the CoorsLight bottle label which is printed using a gravure process. We have won the work for the CoorsLight label in Mexico. In Brazil we are on the the SKOL bottle label and the can. Our metal deco ink is used on cans in Canada, the U.S., Australia, U.K., Korea, China and a few other places in South America.

If anyone wants to reach me to learn more (at least all I can tell you) you may do so via my email address which is jld@ctiinks.com.

Thanks.