FuturePrint Podcast

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A corrugated box used to be judged on one thing: did it protect the product? That bar has moved. I’m joined by Kevin Miller, President and CEO of TRG Packaging and Display Solutions, to unpack how corrugated packaging and retail displays are becoming a front-line tool for brand experience, speed to shelf, and supply chain resilience. From colour consistency to the unboxing experience, we talk about why packaging quality sends a message long before anyone tastes the snack or tries the product. 

Kevin shares what changed across the last five years, especially the whiplash of pandemic-era demand and the lasting shift towards faster decisions, shorter runs, and marketing-led packaging. We get into what customers now expect from their packaging partners: competitive pricing, yes, but also nimble service, flexible graphics, and a supplier who can act like an extension of the brand team when people and roles keep changing. 

We also explore the rebrand and the strategy behind TRG Packaging and Display Solutions investment in BHS Jetliner Xceed industrial digital preprint. Kevin explains the network thinking: printing further upstream, using a hub-and-spoke model, reducing extra freight steps, and turning more sites into “graphics capable” operations without forcing every job onto one print method. If you care about corrugated packaging trends, digital print for packaging, and how converters build scale without losing agility, this conversation is for you. 

Subscribe to the FuturePrint Podcast, share the episode with a colleague in packaging or print, and leave a review with the one idea you’re taking back to your team.
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What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. 
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, Spain
FuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany

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Printing should not feel like gambling, yet colour matching in decorative print and textile printing often turns into endless trial runs, wasted substrate and stressed teams. We’re joined by Duncan Ross, Managing Director at AVA CADCAM, to talk about what actually makes colour predictable across a modern digital print workflow, from design creation to RIP to pressroom control.

We get practical about how AVA’s CAD and CAM approach helps teams take artwork from tools like Photoshop and make it genuinely fit to print: correct repeats and scale, smarter colourways, and early warnings for out-of-gamut areas and overprints that will fail later on the printer. Duncan also shares what he sees in the market right now, why cost saving has become a top priority, and how tighter colour management can reduce the number of attempts it takes to match a customer target, unlocking real productivity gains.

Digital versus analogue is not framed as a battle. We explore how décor manufacturers can test and develop designs on industrial inkjet, then keep them transferable to analogue presses for volume by working within a common colour space and controlling variables. We also cover collaboration with printer manufacturers and workflow partners, plus the sustainability upside of reducing blind sampling, wasted energy and unnecessary shipping of inaccurate approvals.

If you care about colour management, print production efficiency, workflow integration and making decorative printing more sustainable, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave us a review with the one workflow change that would save you the most waste.
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What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. 
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, Spain
FuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany

Send us Fan Mail
What happens when an automation company approaches digital printing as a manufacturing challenge?
In this episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, Marcus Timson speaks with Mike Seitel, owner and CEO of Norwalt, about bringing digital inkjet directly into production lines and helping manufacturers reduce their dependence on conventional labels.
Founded in 1971, Norwalt built its business around product handling and assembly automation for consumer goods, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Its move into printing began with a straightforward customer request: find a way to eliminate labels. Seitel explains how approaching the challenge without established printing assumptions helped the team explore different solutions.
The conversation examines the pressures reshaping packaging production, from smaller batches and changing ingredients to sudden demand driven by social media. Seitel discusses how inline direct-to-shape printing could reduce label inventories and make manufacturers more responsive.
He also addresses the practical demands of industrial adoption. Speed, reliability, printhead maintenance and sustained performance all matter when printing becomes part of a working production line. Norwalt’s approach includes rigorous acceptance testing, flexible integration and the possibility of introducing digital printing alongside existing labelling equipment.
Looking ahead, Seitel explores opportunities in food, beverages and personal care, including ingredient information, traceability and 2D codes. He also shares his thinking on robotic changeovers, AI-assisted diagnostics and factories with far greater automation.
For manufacturers, OEMs and printing technology providers, the discussion offers a perspective on what happens when product handling, engineering and print are developed together, with the performance of the whole production line in mind.
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What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. 
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, Spain
FuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany

Send us Fan Mail
What happens when every corrugated box is given its own digital identity?
In this episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, Marcus Timson speaks with Lars and Christian Engel, owners and managing directors of BHS Corrugated, about how serialized QR codes could transform packaging from a necessary cost into a connected, value-generating business platform.
The discussion moves beyond the familiar use of QR codes as simple links to websites. Lars and Christian explain how a unique code can connect each individual package to a digital twin, creating what BHS describes as “cyber-physical packaging”. This could give a box access to dynamic information concerning its contents, materials, origin, destination, carbon footprint and journey through the supply chain.
They explore the practical benefits for corrugated manufacturers, brands, retailers and consumers. Serialization could improve traceability, enable more targeted product recalls, reduce labelling costs and help manufacturers identify over-packaging or insufficient packaging. It could also support emerging digital product-passport requirements by making information about composition, recyclability, provenance and compliance readily accessible.
The commercial possibilities extend further. Connected packaging could allow brands to communicate directly with consumers after a retail purchase, delivering product information, support, personalised promotions and complementary offers. In this model, the box becomes a marketing channel, data source and miniature salesperson.
Lars and Christian also explain why digital printing is fundamental in order to future proof any corrugated box printing production plant.

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What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. 
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, Spain
FuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany

Send us Fan Mail
Stefan Casey of Lightning Tree hosts Camilla Young (GS1 UK), Fred Lill (Lil Packaging) and Thomas Herman (Path) for a wide-ranging look at packaging through three lenses: stories, scanning and sustainability.

Topics include: why people remember how a brand makes them feel rather than what it tells them, the tension between reducing waste and reducing meaning, the say-do gap in sustainable packaging where consumers claim they'll pay more but rarely do, and the shift from barcodes to QR codes and the scale of change that entails across the industry. The panel also discusses the economics of digital print, why serialisation and track-and-trace could be the business case that tips digital print into the mainstream, and closes by designing an imaginary World Cup gift pack together, tying storytelling, sustainability and accessibility into one example.

Listen on:

Apple Podcast
Google Podcast
Spotify

What is FuturePrint?
FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. 
We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:
FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, Spain
FuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany