The Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America is the No. 1 event of the craft beer year (April 10-13), and we want you to be ready to see all of the cool new stuff on the trade show floor. We asked exhibitors to tell us what they will be showing off, and we turned those submissions into these handy CBC previews. See you in D.C.
Avery Dennison’s Pressure-Sensitive Labels
Booth #6223
These are legit. Here’s our post preview on these.
Labeltronix’s new adhesive
Booth 959
Labeltronix understands the craft beer industry when it comes to filling and applying labels to your bottles, which is why it has introduced a new and improved adhesive that is available on all its stock uncoated materials. The improvements come in the label’s ability to survive moist and wet environments, plus limit bubbles and wrinkles that will improve your shelf-appeal. Need to see for yourself? Pick up a sample pack of labels highlighting what Labeltronix can do with cans and crowlers.
One-stop shop for shrink sleeving from Lucky Clover Packaging and River City Cannery
Booth 119
Lucky Clover Packaging (and River City Cannery) is a one-stop shop for sleeved cans, crowlers and other packaging materials. It has a dedicated team that works directly with you and your graphic designer to guide you through the artwork approval process for shrink sleeved cans. It applies the shrink sleeves to brite cans in-house and delivers the finished product straight to your brewery.
Lucky Clover stocks both 12- and 16-ounce brite cans, crowlers, slim/sleek cans, as well as other raw materials such as case trays, LOE ends, Paktech handles, etc. With locations in Baltimore and Sacramento, it can handle the logistics.
In terms of minimum orders — order as many pallets as you need at a time and the company will store the rest for you — avoiding having to take up space in your brewery and sinking lots of capital into a full truckload of cans. Combine SKUs into one order — as many SKUs as you need per order.
Finished cans will be at your door in five to six weeks once artwork is approved.
Axon shrink sleeve applicator
Booth 2541
Axon, powered by Pro Mach, will have its newest shrink sleeve applicator and shrink tunnel for the craft brew industry — the EZ150SL and ThermoFlow — on display at the BrewExpo this year. This shrink sleeve duo applies vibrant, eye-catching labels at up to 150 cans or bottles per minute.
The applicator and tunnel solution was developed for breweries that benefit from flexibility in labeling specialty and seasonal beers, as well as those that have no economic incentive investing in hundreds of thousands of printed cans. Every time a new label is needed, operators simply change a roll of film. Shrink sleeves provide a more vibrant retail-shelf presentation, on average, than either printed cans or paper labels.
The “EZ” in the name of the machine is a nod to its operation. The company works with breweries to supply optimum labeling technology for the business, including offering certified refurbished equipment for moderate volume labeling and high speed machines for regional breweries.
