The company’s modern HQ in Skopje was opened in 2019.
WHEN MACEDONIA’S LEADING LABEL CONVERTER INSTALLS AN INLINE FLEXO CARTON PRESS WITH AUTOMATED UNWIND/SPLICE TECHNOLOGY, THERE MUST BE AN INTERESTING STORY TO TELL.
NICK COOMBES VISITED THE COUNTRY’S CAPITAL CITY OF SKOPJE TO FIND OUT MORE.
When the former Yugoslavia was divided into seven different countries, beginning in 1991, Macedonia, or to be more precise, The Republic of North Macedonia, became one of the new sovereign lands. Today, this small landlocked country, with neighbours Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, and Serbia has a population of 1.83 million within its 26,000 sq km borders and a GDP of $16 bn.
Like so many of the eastern European countries that emerged from the communist based state owned economies of the post war years, Macedonia had its share of entrepreneurs keen to take advantage of its new-found freedom to do business, and Moniko is an example of how a successful company can be built from humble beginnings. The name Moniko is an abbreviation of the Greek word ‘Monikos’ meaning unique and is a suitable moniker for this family-owned business that began life as a label printer and grew into Europe’s largest manufacturer of casino tickets.
To find out more, I spoke with CEO, Vladimir Kjurchiev, who explained the unusual history of the company’s inception and development.
CEO Vladimir Kjurchiev says that non-stop production saves 60m of waste per roll change.
“I started buying and selling labels while I was still at high school. In my third year, my parents bought me a 386 computer with a Corel Draw graphics package, rare back in 1993, and I was hooked. I acquired a second-hand HP3 printer and set out on my bicycle to sell and deliver the printed labels. My first order was for 3,000 A4 sheets with the labels printed two-up and the sheets cut in half.”
After graduating, he joined a screen-printing company where he began sourcing offset print. Early work came from local pharmacies that needed labels for own brand products and as business grew, he decided to set up a formal company in 1993.
The first press, purchased second-hand in 1994 and still in operation, was a two-colour Lonsdale (now Edale) stack press, which was followed in 1998 by a fully refurbished five colour Edale with special anilox and doctor blade pumps for water based inks.
As demand for wet glue labels declined with the advent of GWP standards, Moniko invested in its first Gallus press for self adhesive work in 2001, and today has six of the Swiss manufacturer’s letterpress machines and three EM280 flexo lines.
The move into cartons came in 2012, with an approach from a casino to supply tickets on lightweight cartonboard. The tickets are used to record the funds of each gambler as he or she moves around the casino, without the need to carry cash. As such, they must be guaranteed 100% accurate, and this is where automatic registration on-press became vital. “It’s a high-volume low margin business so you have to specialise to make it work. We started small with a local casino but as our reputation grew, we quickly established an international business and today our casino tickets are in use all over the world,” he explained.
The Martin is capable of handling reels up to 660mm wide, 1270mm in diameter and 590kg in weight at speeds up to 200m/min.
The Edale FL5 is a fully automated six-colour flexo line ideally suited for runs from 1000 to 100,000 units on board up to 700-micron.
The new line at Moniko features a Martin MBS unwind/splicer and Edale FL5 flexo press for non-stop single-pass production.
Moving into Cartons
For Moniko, 2019 was a bumper year for business and it moved all its ticket production into a new purpose-built 3,000 sqm factory, at that time being produced on the Gallus EM280 presses. And then, the pandemic struck, causing a slowdown in demand, and even when it started to pick up there was a shortage of materials.
Despite this, and with great confidence in his company’s ability to grow its market share, Kjurchiev decided to investigate the market for a new printing press. Of the four manufacturers considered, Edale, in his opinion, offered the best match for his requirements. Following a visit to Edale’s UK showroom and demo centre where he saw an FL5 press in operation with a flat-bed diecutter, his imagination was fired up as to what potential business this type of configuration could bring to Moniko. The company’s current customer base had never shown much demand for cartons, but the FL5 would allow Moniko to offer and develop a new range of products that had previously been beyond its capability, and consequently tap into large new export markets.
“What I really appreciated was Edale’s approach that allowed me to ‘pick & mix’ the specification that I felt I needed for the work I had in mind, and I’d like to record my special thanks to Darren Pickford and Louise Bailey for their advice and unwavering support with, what for us, was a major investment,” said Kjurchiev.
The deal was struck in November 2022 and the press, a six-colour FL5 with 600mm web width, was installed and commissioned at Moniko’s HQ in Skopje in October 2023. Fully servo-driven, the FL5 is specified to run water-based inks and is fitted with hot-air drying and a rotary die cut unit. He continued, “Water-based inks are cheaper to buy and provide good print quality but as with all new technology we have had to undergo a learning curve with the new press. We have already test run it at 180m/min on uncoated stock without drying, using special inks supplied by Sun Chemical.”
Edale’s FL5 is a fully automated single-pass carton production line that can deliver fully-embellished cartons in just one step. Ideal for runs from 1,000 to 100,000 units and highly configurable, it offers flexo printing, including reverse side, hot or cold foil, lamination, holograms, cast & cure, and coating on substrates up to 700-micron (28pt). Crucially, for all these processes it needs only one operator to convert the blank reel of board into finished products with no need for the time or space to downstack work in progress.
Its Autonomous Inking Impression and Registration (AIIR) provides automation and repeatability of quality and print accuracy, making it an ideal fit for Moniko’s work. In addition to requiring a new press to fully develop his company’s potential in the carton market, Kjurchiev knew that roll automation would be a key element, and for some time had been in contact with Bernd Schopferer, European Sales Manager, Martin Automatic, regarding improving the performance of his Gallus presses.
The first real opportunity of putting this into practice came with the installation of the new Martin MBS unwind/splice unit to allow continuous operation. Capable of matching the Edale’s top production speed of 200m/min, the Martin can handle rolls at web widths up to 660mm, 1270mm in diameter, and 590kg in weight.
According to Kjurchiev, using the Martin saves around 60m of material per roll change and by allowing the press to run continuously there is no drop in quality as it slows to a halt and then ramps up again when changing the rolls manually – so, more saleable product per shift. In fact, production at Moniko will double with the Edale/Martin combination.
The MBS unwind/splicer is fitted with Martin’s ‘Enhanced Operator Productivity Package’. Schopferer explained, “It includes a festoon dancer brake system that holds the roller carriage in position, even if air and power is cut off unintentionally. The system also guides the operator through the splice preparation and monitors the status of the components required for safe operation. It has a laser assist system for the second-side tape roller, which makes precise positioning of the tape on the second side easy and helps straighten the new web into the splice unit. It’s a really useful added-value package.”
The Edale is currently running solely light board for ticket production, but Moniko is looking closely at the growing market demand for boxes on 700-micron board that are replacing the moulded clamshells so popular in the take-away and fast-food sectors. Other new market sectors of interest include paper-based packaging products that are seen as more environmentally friendly and tea-sachet tags, which is a global business.
These will provide the means for Kjurchiev Moniko’s casino tickets are used all over the world and are the foundation on which it will grow its carton business in the food sector. to grow annual sales from the current €6.5m to €10m by 2026.
Darren Pickford, Sales Director, Edale, commented, “We were delighted to be able to guide Moniko through its introduction to carton product manufacturing using the inline flexo process – both sides have years of narrow web experience so their choice of an Edale FL5 was especially pleasing against strong competition. We look forward to assisting Moniko in developing its business with our technology and professional support service.”
Moniko’s casino tickets are used all over the world and are the foundation on which it will grow its carton business in the food section.
Environmental Champion
There is one more side to Moniko’s business that goes unnoticed in the print trade. Kjurchiev has established a bee-keeping business high in the mountains of Macedonia at 1700m above sea-level in bear country! Currently housing 650 hives with a plan to grow to 800, the various types of honey produced are flavoured by the local flora at that altitude and are proving extremely popular. “It’s part of our commitment to a green future – and we’re very proud of what it’s achieving,” he concluded.