Udo Linke appears on the Innoform podcast
27. February 2026
To mark the 10th Packaging Print Experts’ Meeting, our Managing Director, Udo Linke, appeared as a guest on Innoform’s industry podcast. In conversation with Innoform’s Managing Director, Karsten Schröder, they examined the current market situation and explored why, despite the technology being fully mature, 7c printing has yet to become a run-of-the-mill solution in the FMCG sector.
7C: More than just three additional colours
The discussion focused on the practical hurdles and strategic opportunities that 7C printing offers brand manufacturers. The main topic was the discrepancy between theory and practice when implementing the process under standard market production conditions in flexographic printing.
The fixed 7C colour palette (CMYK + orange, green, violet) is intended to make the use of Pantone spot colours unnecessary. Whilst this theoretically allows for savings in makeready times and materials, the biggest hurdle in practice lies in the lack of cross-industry standardisation in flexographic printing. In offset printing, for example, the 7C system was able to establish itself more easily for numerous applications such as labels due to widespread standardisation.
Udo Linke explained that a stable implementation of 7C in flexographic printing can only succeed in the long term if there is seamless coordination between the design agency, the pre-press house and the print shop. This is necessary because all components – from the data, through the proofs and the selection of print media, right through to the set-up of the printing press – must be designed for the specific requirements.
It became clear that the switch from CMYK + spot colours to a fixed 7-colour palette is not a purely technical decision, but requires a changed approach throughout the entire process chain.
