Calendars & Presentation Folders for Food & FMCG

The starting point

Single-vendor production is the practical reason exporters in food and FMCG use Fotoset. Nothing is sub-contracted out for lamination or screen work, so the sheet does not travel, the schedule does not slip against another factory's queue, and one plant is accountable for the finished calendars and presentation folders.

In food and FMCG, calendars and presentation folders is used for work of this kind:

• Year-end calendars sent to buyers, agents and suppliers
• Desk calendars carrying the product range month by month
• Folders issued at trade fairs holding price lists and technical sheets
• Sample folders that hold swatch cards and printed specimens

In this sector the printed set around the product usually includes the following, and Fotoset can supply all of it on one order rather than leaving the buyer to co-ordinate three suppliers:

• Printed folding cartons for packet, sachet and bottle ranges
• Wrap-around and front-and-back labels with clear panel separation
• Sleeves and banding for multipacks
• Barcode and weight labels for retail units

Typical specifications for this pairing

Size and format range: Wall calendars from A4 to A2, desk calendars in common landscape formats, folders to hold A4 and foolscap inserts. Cartons are usually 250 to 350 GSM board with a food-suitable coating; labels are semi-gloss paper or film.

Printing is by sheet-fed offset for process and spot colours, with silkscreen used where an opaque white, a metallic or a fluorescent is specified. Both processes are in the same building, so a combination job runs without moving the sheet.

• Sheet-fed offset in four-colour process with spot brand colours
• In-house photography and colour scanning for calendar imagery
• Proofing before plate-making so the annual run holds to previous years

Stock and finish selection

• Art board 250 to 350 GSM for folders and calendar backs
• Coated art paper 130 to 170 GSM for calendar leaves
• Kraft and textured boards for uncoated folder finishes

Finishing is carried out on the same site as printing. That includes film lamination in gloss, matt and soft-touch, spot UV, foil blocking, embossing, die-cutting, creasing, punching and eyeletting, so a calendars and presentation folders order leaves as a finished item rather than as printed sheets.

• Gloss, matt and soft-touch lamination
• Die-cutting of pockets, slits and hanging holes
• Wiro binding, spiral binding and top-hanger fitting
• Creasing, gluing and flat-pack or made-up despatch

Marks, references and declarations

Fotoset prints the marks and declarations supplied by the customer and does not alter them. Artwork is checked before plate-making and any mark that will not reproduce cleanly is queried in writing. For food and FMCG, the content that commonly appears on this item includes:

• FSSAI licence number and the mandatory Indian food declaration set
• Nutrition panel, ingredient list and allergen declaration
• Green and brown vegetarian and non-vegetarian marks
• Net quantity declaration in metric units, in the legal metrology format
• Best-before, batch and manufacture date fields left clear for coding

Languages

English plus Hindi is the common Indian requirement, with regional scripts added for state distribution. Export packs carry the destination market language.

Ordering pattern

• Festive and gifting ranges generate concentrated carton runs before the autumn season
• New product launches create short first runs followed by larger repeats
• Promotional overprints and flash panels arrive at short notice

Supplying files for this job

• Press-ready PDF, version 1.4 or later, with 3 mm bleed on all four sides and crop marks outside the trim.
• Native Adobe Illustrator or CorelDRAW files accepted, with fonts converted to outlines and linked images embedded.
• Images at 300 dpi at final printed size. Line art and barcode artwork supplied as vector wherever possible.
• Colour built in CMYK. Spot colours called out by Pantone reference in the file and in the purchase order.
• Die line supplied on a separate named layer, in a spot colour set to overprint, not on the artwork layer.