Food & Beverage Brand Nami Kombucha Reinvents Labeling with Hybrid Printing

“We had to double our SKU count without adding headcount,” recalls Aya Matsuda, Operations Director at Nami Kombucha in Osaka. “Before we made a move, our procurement team even typed ‘is printrunner legit’ into Google, called the printrunner van nuys office for references, and asked peers about what ‘good’ looks like.” That diligence set the tone for the project. Within weeks, we aligned on a hybrid label strategy that balanced flexibility with compliance for food-contact packaging.

I was in the room for those early conversations. As a sales manager, I’ve heard every version of the same concern: supply chain volatility, erratic color across films and papers, and the fear that a new system will slow the team down. When **printrunner** came up in the discussion, the mood shifted from cautious to practical: what does success actually look like on press, with their specific labelstock and inks?

Here’s the story, told through the voices of the people who lived it—the operations lead, the prepress specialist, and the production supervisor—on how a hybrid printing setup, dialed-in color control, and a realistic rollout plan helped them meet demand across Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Company Overview and History

Nami Kombucha started as a small-batch brewer in 2016, selling at farmers’ markets in Kansai. By 2023, they were in national retail with 70–80 active SKUs across seasonal flavors and co-branded limited runs. Labels are their calling card—clear PP film for chilled bottles, paper labelstock for gift packs, and foil-accent variants for collaborations. Run lengths range from short-run launches to steady, high-volume core flavors.

The production environment is a blend: two flexographic presses for steady movers, a compact digital line for on-demand runs, and outsourced specialty finishes when needed. Compliance was non-negotiable: they follow EU 1935/2004 for food-contact materials, track with GS1 barcoding, and keep to ISO 12647 targets for print consistency. The team’s mindset is pragmatic—if a process holds ΔE within 2–3 and keeps FPY north of 90%, it earns a place on the floor.

To benchmark color, they even compared sample sets from an overseas peer group—one contact at a label printing company lurgan sent test strips to stress-check PP films and varnish combinations. That exercise didn’t dictate Nami’s choice, but it framed expectations for what ‘tight’ color and clean die-cuts should look like when the press is humming.

Quality and Consistency Issues

“Some weeks, our ΔE on clear PP drifted into the 3–6 range, especially on blues,” says Emiko, the prepress specialist. “Flexo plates were fine; the culprit was a mix of film batches, cure variability, and a crowded changeover schedule.” FPY hovered around 82–85%, and waste rates sat in the 9–12% band on complex, multi-SKU days. Scuffing on matte varnishes showed up after cold-chain logistics, and the team saw ppm defects spike when switching from glassine-backed to PET liners midweek.

Operators kept asking very practical questions: “how to make a printing label that holds color on PP with minimal setup?” and “How do we keep QR codes sharp when we scale variable data?” Their concerns were fair. Labels live through condensation, handling, and retail lighting. Without a stable process—ink, substrate, cure, and finishing aligned—every small deviation turns into rework or scrap.

Solution Design and Configuration

The team chose a hybrid setup—flexographic units for spot colors, whites, and coatings, paired with LED-UV inkjet for process and variable data. Think of it as a configuration-first approach rather than a single magic box. A compact custom label printing machine with inline varnishing and die-cutting handled short runs, while the existing flexo lines took steady products. We targeted G7 calibration, set ISO 12647 aims, and locked ΔE to a 2–3 window on key brand hues. Low-Migration UV Ink formulations, paired with LED-UV Printing, addressed food-contact considerations without pushing cure temperatures too high for thin films.

Integration was the make-or-break moment. We standardized anilox volumes for whites, switched to a consistent labelstock family (PP, paper, shrink options) with tighter COF specs, and built a simple press-side SOP. “Day one, my operators asked again: ‘how to make a printing label that keeps our blues steady on PP?’ We built a laminated checklist with ink laydown targets, LED-UV dose ranges, and a visual Pass/Fail swatch,” the production supervisor says. Based on insights from printrunner’s work with 50+ packaging brands, we also added a 10-minute morning color drift check to catch issues before job one.

Procurement did their homework too. “Due diligence matters to us,” Aya notes. “You’ll still find a line in our QA documents referencing the question is printrunner legit—not as a jab, but as a reminder that vendor trust is earned with steady ΔE, stable FPY, and clear service levels.” The trade-offs were real: low-migration inks cost about 10–15% more than standard UV sets, and early runs revealed that matte varnish needed a slightly higher LED-UV dose on humid days to avoid rub-off. None of this was a showstopper; it just required discipline.

Quantitative Results and Metrics

Six months in, the numbers tell a grounded story. Color accuracy tightened to a ΔE range of roughly 1.5–2.5 on brand-critical hues. FPY moved from the 82–85% band to about 92–95% on stabilized SKUs. Changeovers shifted from 45–60 minutes to 30–40 minutes with pre-inked cassettes and a locked SOP. Waste on complex, multi-SKU days fell from the 9–12% range to around 4–6%. Throughput on the hybrid line rose by roughly 18–25% depending on the label mix, and defects dropped from ~1,800–2,200 ppm to ~700–900 ppm on serialized runs. Energy per pack (kWh/pack) eased down by an estimated 6–8% due to LED-UV cure settings and fewer reprints.

There were pleasant surprises: seasonal and promotional runs now start at lower MOQs without tying up the flexo lines, and variable QR/DataMatrix (ISO/IEC 18004) serialization felt routine after week three. Nami kept benchmarking with peers—including a contact at a label printing company lurgan—to sanity-check results. Payback sits in the 14–18 month window, depending on how aggressively seasonal SKUs cycle. It’s not perfect—humidity still asks for tweaks, and specialty foils stay outsourced—but it’s practical and predictable. As Aya puts it, “We wanted a system we could live with every day.” That’s where printrunner stayed relevant: consistent support, clear targets, and a workflow the team trusts.