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1 — High-speed flexo adhesive
UV adhesive printed at full production speed on coated SBS, FBB, or laminated foil-board.
Mass Premium
FMCG Packaging
Premium shelf-impact at FMCG volumes and budgets.
Cold foil stamping was, in many ways, invented for FMCG. The economics of mass-premium packaging — chocolate bars, yoghurt lids, toothpaste cartons, premium pet food — never tolerated the slow, single-purpose nature of hot stamping. CFS cold foil runs inline on wide-web and narrow-web flexo presses at 300+ m/min, layering tints, gradients and varnishes over the metal in a single pass. The result is decoration density that previously belonged only to luxury packaging, now achievable at the unit cost FMCG demands.
Quick answer
Cold foil stamping runs at 250–350 m/min inline on wide- and narrow-web UV flexo presses for FMCG cartons and lids — confectionery, dairy, toothpaste, personal care — on coated SBS/FBB and foil-laminated board 200–400 gsm. A single bright-gold base foil is tinted downstream with process inks to produce copper, rose, bronze and champagne, eliminating the foil-inventory bloat and offline hot stamping foil pass required at FMCG unit costs.
The cold foil process
Three inline steps. One press pass.
Cold foil stamping is fundamentally different from hot stamping — it lives inside the flexo print line, not beside it. Here is how it works for fmcg packaging.
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2 — Inline foil & cure
CFS foil web transferred and cured in a single nip — no slowdown, no second pass.
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3 — Tinted overprints
Process colours printed over the foil to create rose-gold, bronze, copper and bespoke metallic shades from a single SKU of base foil.
Why cold foil for fmcg packaging
The case against hot stamping.
- 300+ m/min throughput — matches FMCG flexo production rates
- 1 base foil + tinted overprint = unlimited metallic colour library, no foil inventory bloat
- Inline with print → no offline stamping, no extra labour, no extra footprint
- Cost per impression up to 60% lower than conventional hot stamping at volume
Press parameters
Production-tuned.
- Substrate
- SBS, FBB, foil-laminated board 200–400 gsm
- Press speed
- 250–350 m/min
- Coverage
- Spot to 100% flood
- Overprint
- UV/water-based flexo tints and varnishes
- Recyclability
- Repulpable (Cepi/PTS test pass)
Cold foil vs hot stamping foil
Cold foil vs hot stamping foil for FMCG cartons
Side-by-side operating parameters for cold foil stamping and hot stamping foil on fmcg packaging, using the substrate and press-speed window this vertical actually runs.
| Attribute | Cold foil stamping (CFS) | Hot stamping foil |
|---|---|---|
| Process | UV adhesive printed → cold foil laminated → instant UV cure (ambient temperature) | Heated brass/magnesium die at 100–150 °C presses foil onto substrate, offline |
| Typical substrate window | SBS, FBB, foil-laminated board 200–400 gsm | Coated SBS/FBB; heat-sensitive films require special dies |
| Press speed | 250–350 m/min | 20–60 m/min (Kurz / Crocus benchmarks) |
| Tooling | Photopolymer flexo plate — hours, low cost | Etched brass/magnesium die — days, per-artwork cost |
| Inline overprint | Yes — CMYK/varnish overprint in same press pass | No — decoration happens after print, offline |
| VOC / m² | ≈ 0 g/m² (100% UV-cure adhesive) | 2–6 g/m² for solvent-adjacent finishing steps |
| Registration | ±0.05–0.10 mm (servo combination presses) | ±0.15–0.30 mm typical |
Sources & test methods
- Cold foil transfer at 150–450 m/min on inline UV flexo (Bobst Master M6). — Bobst Master M6 — inline flexo press specification (bobst.com)
- Hot stamping foil: 100–150 °C brass/magnesium dies at 20–60 m/min, offline. — Kurz / Crocus Foil Stamping Advice PDF; Labels & Labeling Label Academy chapter 8
- VOC ≈ 0 g/m² for UV-cure cold foil vs 2–6 g/m² for solvent-based decoration. — RadTech Low-Emission Technologies (Golden, 2019); US EPA flexographic VOC baseline (AP-42 §4.9)
- Cold-foiled paperboard is repulpable under EN 643 (metal layer ≈ 0.05% of pack weight). — CEPI / PTS Munich deinkability protocol reports
- Adhesion tested to ASTM D3359-22 (4B pass); coating weight verified via beta-gauge; colour tolerance ΔE00 ≤ 1.5. — ASTM D3359-22 standard test method
- Market, cost and lifecycle figures. — /cold-foil-statistics dataset — Grand View Research, Smithers Pira, FINAT, CEPI, CFS press trials
Recommended foils
Full rangeThe CFS palette for fmcg packaging.
Where you'll find it on shelf.
Chocolate and confectionery wrappers & cartons
Premium dairy lids and pots
Toothpaste and personal-care cartons
Pet food, coffee and snack pouches
Other applications
All four
Specifying the job
What to lock down before press.
Successful fmcg packaging jobs share four upstream decisions: substrate and finish, foil family, adhesive coat weight and overprint sequence. Lock these in design review and the press run becomes a repeatable production task instead of a make-ready experiment. Our technical team publishes per-product run-sheets for each foil SKU so prepress, platemaking and the pressroom work from the same numbers.
On press, the variables that matter most are anilox cell volume (we recommend 8–12 cm³/m² for most fmcg packaging work), UV lamp dose (350–500 mJ/cm² for cationic adhesives), nip pressure on the foil station, and web tension stability across the foil-transfer zone. Combination flexo presses from Bobst, Gallus, Nilpeter, MPS and Mark Andy all run our foil range out of the box; older machines may need a foil-station retrofit, which we can scope with your OEM.
For brand owners, the practical takeaway: send your dieline, intended substrate and a sample of a competitor finish you want to match or beat. We will return a printed sample pack on your stock, a recommended foil family, and a target run-sheet within 5 working days.
Quality control
Every production batch is checked on a Konica Minolta CM-26d spectrophotometer for L*a*b* consistency, plus inline 100% optical inspection for pinholes and edge definition. Tolerance bands and golden samples ship with each lot.
Sustainability
Foil supplied to fmcg packaging customers is produced in plants running on 100% renewable electricity, with carrier-film take-back through our French recycling partner. Full ISO 14040/14044 LCA data is available on request. Read our sustainability brief.
Compliance
Products tested against EuPIA, Swiss Ordinance Annex 10 and Nestlé Guidance Note for low migration; FSC chain-of-custody available on paper-backed lines; REACH and RoHS declarations on every technical data sheet.
FAQ
FMCG Packaging cold foil questions.
Don't see your question? The technical team replies within one working day on the contact form.
Manufacturing capability
Made in our own plants — not resold.
Vacuum metallizing, UV coating, colour matching and QC all happen under one roof across three European sites. That is why every batch ships with a spectrophotometer report, a golden sample and a batch code you can trace for ten years.
- ISO 9001:2015 — Quality management
- ISO 14001:2015 — Environmental management
- ISO 50001:2018 — Energy management
- FSC® Chain of Custody (carrier films)
01 · Vacuum metallizing
Aluminium coil to optical mirror
02 · UV cold-transfer coating
Release + colour chemistry
03 · Colour & QC lab
ΔE ≤ 1.5 against master
04 · Warehouse & dispatch
Consignment stock, 40+ countries
Go deeper on the cold foil process.
Specify cold foil for fmcg packaging.
Sample cards, press validation, and substrate compatibility — our technical team is one form away.