Capama Blog

1. The 2026 theme: from "print more" to "change over faster"

For two decades the key metrics for a label converter were press uptime and peak speed: long jobs, few versions, run them back to back, and the faster the press the lower the unit cost.

In 2026 that logic is being replaced. Four things are happening at once:

Jobs are getting shorter — e-commerce, direct-to-consumer brands and regional marketing multiply the versions of a single product, slicing long runs into a series of short ones.
Versions are multiplying — one customer may release a dozen label SKUs in a year, so changeovers come more often.
Lead times are compressing — brands replenish on demand, and the production window available to the converter has shrunk from weeks to days.
There is simply more mandatory content on the label — traceability codes, regulatory information and multilingual text are not optional decoration; if they cannot be printed, the goods cannot ship.

Three outside forces push in the same direction: demand (short runs and personalisation), regulation (traceability and compliance) and policy (the digitalisation of printing). The seven trends below follow that order.

2. Trend 1: short runs, many versions, fast delivery as the norm

The hard part of a short run is not printing — it is preparation. In a conventional workflow every changeover means stopping the press, mounting plates, registering, proofing and colour correction. On short runs, that overhead is where the margin goes.

The industry has responded with a clear structural shift: digital printing has moved from a supplement to one of the main production tools. Annual vendor trend reviews consistently rank "digital and hybrid presses entering mainstream production" as the defining feature of 2026 — digital equipment takes short runs, variable data, versioning and personalisation, while conventional printing keeps long runs and large solid areas. They divide the work rather than replace each other.

The most direct technical consequence for converters is inline digital print-to-die-cut: printing, lamination, die-cutting and waste stripping combined in one line, with no offline handling and no second registration between steps.

CAPAMA digital printing and die-cutting machine SMART ZH-CW65:

The value of digital on short runs is not cost per label but changeover cost approaching zero: no plates, no plate mounting, and a revised file is a revised product.

3. Trend 2: traceability compliance pushes label content to the front

The single largest variable for the label industry in 2026 comes from the regulatory side.

◆ China: pharmaceutical traceability tightened across the board. NMPA Announcement No. 85 of 2026 (issued 1 September 2026, Announcement on Further Strengthening Pharmaceutical Information-based Traceability Management) requires full-variety coding — code everything that can be coded — and scanning across the whole chain. Manufacturers must, on the principle of "one item, one code; item and code traced together", complete code activation and code association across every level of sales packaging before the product is offered for sale, and must complete multi-code association between the drug identification code, the commodity barcode, the national drug code and the medical insurance code.

In process language, that is three requirements for a label converter: variable data has to be legible, scannable on the first attempt, and linkable — each packaging level's code tied to the right record. Barcode print quality and code-position consistency have moved from "customer preference" to "delivery gate".

◆ Export markets: the EU packaging regime enters application. Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), entered into force on 11 February 2025 and applies from 12 August 2026. It requires the Commission to adopt implementing acts establishing harmonised labels and labelling specifications, including where information is provided by digital means, by 12 August 2026, and applies PFAS concentration limits to food-contact packaging from the same date.

Both regimes point to one outcome: the mandatory content on a label is growing, and it must be variable, traceable data.

4. Trend 3: multi-layer and leaflet labels fit compliance content into a fixed panel

Panel space is finite; regulatory text is not. The answer is not smaller type — it is a different construction.

Multi-layer labels (peel-back and booklet formats) fold the leaflet into the label itself: peel one layer for multilingual information, another for regulatory and promotional content. They carry more information without enlarging the pack, which is why demand is rising in pharmaceuticals, personal care and chemicals.

CAPAMA automatic leaflet / label combining machines:

The economics come from eliminating a separate leaflet: printing, combining and die-cutting are completed in one pass, and the packaging line no longer needs a second insertion step.

5. Trend 4: printing, lamination, die-cutting and waste stripping inline

Every extra process adds risk. Every offline transfer adds another tension fluctuation, another registration drift, another pile of work in progress.

In 2026, inline production matters on two levels: quality — the web completes every step on one line, so tension and registration are calibrated in one place instead of accumulating error across machines; and management — less work in progress, a predictable lead time, and short runs that can go into the normal schedule.

There are two routes: an inline digital machine (short runs, variable data) or a rotary letterpress with downstream processes on the same line (long runs, multiple colours, stable colour). The two are complementary, and many converters keep both.

6. Trend 5: rotary letterpress remains the workhorse for long, high-quality runs

It is easy to miss the other half of digitalisation: long runs still belong to the rotary letterpress.

High-volume jobs are judged on unit cost, colour consistency and stability over long production hours. On those measures the rotary letterpress has not been displaced — if anything, it is now more focused, because the short runs went to the digital line.

CAPAMA rotary letterpress CPM-270L / 270LTC / 340L:

The sensible 2026 configuration is a division of labour: the rotary letterpress takes long runs and large solid areas, digital print-to-die-cut takes short runs and variable data, and the multi-layer combining line takes the information payload. The era of one machine doing everything is ending; line efficiency is the new competitive edge.

7. Trend 6: sustainability has moved from bonus to entry requirement

In 2026 sustainability is no longer a marketing line — it is a legal gate. From 12 August 2026 the EU PPWR turns recyclability, packaging identification and restrictions on substances of concern into binding requirements for packaging placed on the EU market, and the PFAS limits for food-contact packaging apply from the same date.

For the label side, the practical actions concentrate in three places: lighter and mono-material substrates (easier to recycle), less liner and process waste (an incidental benefit of inline lines and integrated waste stripping), and low-migration inks and compliant materials (standard practice in food-contact and pharmaceutical segments).

It is worth noting that these actions are the same as the inline argument above: fewer processes means less waste.

8. Trend 7: automation and data connectivity — policy has already set the direction

China's National Press and Publication Administration issued the Three-Year Action Plan for the Digitalisation of the Printing Industry (2025-2027), which sets the direction up to 2027: build an end-to-end connected digital system in which leading enterprises iterate ahead, above-scale enterprises upgrade steadily and SMEs advance in steps. It names digital process design, intelligent workshop scheduling and inline intelligent inspection as application scenarios to be expanded, and identifies high-precision inkjet control systems, next-generation prepress workflow software, high-speed variable data processing, digital inks, machine vision inspection and blockchain-based anti-counterfeiting traceability among the key technologies to be advanced.

For a label converter the practical reading is simple: equipment has to be able to join the data chain. With short multi-version runs on one side and traceability coding on the other, inline inspection and high-speed variable data handling are no longer "later".

9. The market numbers: modest volume growth, significant structural change

Global label market: about USD 47.01 billion in 2025, about USD 49.37 billion in 2026, projected to reach about USD 64.26 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of about 5.41% over 2026-2031 (published research abstract).

Digital label printing market: about USD 12.3 billion in 2025, projected to reach about USD 20.6 billion by 2035, a compound annual growth rate of about 5.3% (published research abstract).

Read together, the message is clear: total market growth is modest, and the growth is in the mix, not in the speed. When the order book shifts from "few versions, long runs" to "many versions, short runs", profitability is decided not by how fast the press runs but by how long a changeover takes.

10. Three questions for a label converter in 2026

★ What share of my order book is short run? If it is already the majority while the workflow is still built for long runs, changeover loss is the main cost. → inline digital print-to-die-cut.

★ Do my customers need regulatory text, multiple languages or traceability coding? If the mandatory content on the panel keeps growing, changing the construction beats shrinking the type. → multi-layer and leaflet combining.

★ Are my long runs still plate-mounted by hand and die-cut offline? The advantage of a long run depends on stability and inline processing, or it is cancelled out by its own changeover time. → rotary letterpress with downstream processes inline.

Label printing in 2026 has not become harder — the definition of printing has become wider: from "putting an image on a substrate" to "printing data accurately, fitting the information in, and connecting the processes". Once that is clear, the priority order for capital investment becomes clear as well.

References

1. Three-Year Action Plan for the Digitalisation of the Printing Industry (2025-2027) · National Press and Publication Administration · https://www.nppa.gov.cn/xxfb/tzgs/202506/t20250609_899420.html
2. Announcement on Further Strengthening Pharmaceutical Information-based Traceability Management (NMPA Announcement No. 85 of 2026) · National Medical Products Administration (full text republished on a government website) · https://yjj.sh.gov.cn/qtgzwj/20260901/ad6710acfa03492f9c2e4048476f9d89.html
3. National Medical Products Administration · Drug announcements index (entry for Announcement No. 85 of 2026) · https://www.nmpa.gov.cn/directory/web/nmpa/yaopin/ypggtg/index.html
4. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, PPWR) · EUR-Lex · https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/40/oj/eng
5. Label Market Size, Growth Trends 2026 (global label market size and CAGR, 2025-2031) · Mordor Intelligence · https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-label-market
6. Global Digital Label Printing Market Set for Steady Growth (digital label printing market size and CAGR, 2025-2035) · Future Market Insights press release · https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/articles/global-digital-label-printing-market-071200180.html
7. Label Flexo Printing Trends Every Converter Should Watch In 2026 · Focus Label · vendor trend review · https://blog.focuslabel.com/flexo-printing-trends-2026
8. Digital Label Printing Trends for 2026 · Konica Minolta · vendor trend review · https://kmbs.konicaminolta.us/blog/digital-label-printing-trends-for-2026-a-blueprint-for-high-margin-growth

CAPAMA (Shanghai) Machinery Co., Ltd. · CAPAMA 图畅（上海）机械有限公司 · www.capama.com