“We had to make our labels circular without compromising legibility or color stability,” says Marta Klein, Head of Sustainability at Nordloom, a mid-sized apparel brand operating across Northern and Western Europe. “The pressure was real: tighter retailer scorecards, new eco-label disclosures, and consumers reading the fine print.” Early on, the team partnered with printrunner for short-run pilots to sanity-check materials and finishing choices before scaling.
Let me back up for a moment. Nordloom’s accessories and care-label program had grown to thousands of SKUs. Seasonal drops and multilingual requirements were choking the old workflow—long set-ups, inconsistent color, and too much waste on narrow web runs. This interview captures what changed, why it mattered in Europe, and what didn’t go to plan.
Company Overview and History
Interviewer: Give us the quick history. How did labels become a strategic topic at Nordloom?
Marta (Nordloom): We started as a knitwear specialist in Denmark fifteen years ago and expanded into denim and outerwear. Labels sound small, but they touch every garment—brand identity tags, care instructions, size strips, and seasonal promo stickers. We shipped across the EU, so our label program had to flex for multiple languages and returns flows. We relied on Offset Printing for hangtags, Screen Printing for some woven-label applications, and Thermal Transfer for variable care data. The variety was fine—until SKU proliferation made our run lengths tiny and our changeovers frequent.
Interviewer: Did you experiment with new techniques before the big shift?
Quality and Compliance Requirements
Marta (Nordloom): Apparel is not food-contact, but retailers in Europe now expect packaging and label materials to align with recognized frameworks. We aligned print workflows with EU 2023/2006 (GMP) principles and adopted Low-Migration Ink sets where practical. For paper hangtags, we moved to FSC-certified stocks; for pressure-sensitive labels, we specified Labelstock and Glassine liners compatible with recycling streams. QR codes needed GS1 structure and ISO/IEC 18004 (QR) readability, and color targets had to live within ΔE 2–3 under D50. Some teams even prototyped internally using small office printers—people literally googled “label printing word” and asked us, half-jokingly, “how to make label printing in word” for mock-ups before a photoshoot.
Interviewer: How did that translate into day-to-day print specs?
Waste and Scrap Problems
Marta (Nordloom): Before the transition, our narrow web lines saw waste rates hovering around 8–12% on short runs. Most of it came from makeready and color dialing when we switched from one micro-batch to another. Changeover time routinely sat at 40–60 minutes. Color drift was another sore spot—on some designs, ΔE crept to 3–5 by late shifts, especially on uncoated stocks. On the apparel side, cloth label printing brought its own surprises: a few Thermal Transfer ribbons bled on recycled polyester tapes during humidity spikes.
Interviewer: Any environmental hot spots you tracked?
Marta (Nordloom): Two: substrate offcuts and energy per thousand labels. We measured kWh/pack as part of our internal dashboard. While numbers varied by press and job, we could see that frequent stops and starts were punishing. Also, some coatings and heavy Varnishing didn’t align with our recycling guidance, so we needed to rethink finishing choices. None of this was catastrophic, but taken together it was trending the wrong way for a European sustainability roadmap.
Solution Design and Configuration
Marta (Nordloom): The turning point came when our technical team validated Digital Printing for the bulk of pressure-sensitive labels and small-batch hangtags, and retained Thermal Transfer for variable care info. We chose Water-based Ink sets for most work, switching to UV-LED Printing only where abrasion demanded extra durability. We anchored color control to G7 and Fogra PSD methods and tightened proof-to-press ΔE to ≤2 on standard designs. Finishing moved to leaner recipes—Die-Cutting with lighter Varnishing—and we reserved Foil Stamping for limited editions to keep recyclability intact.
Interviewer: How did you de-risk the rollout and build confidence internally?
Marta (Nordloom): We staged it. Pilot runs were executed as Short-Run, Variable Data projects—EU languages, batch-specific QR codes, returns instructions. For sampling and consumer testing, the brand partnered with printrunner to order tiny lots, even using a printrunner discount code during the pilot phase to keep the experimentation budget in check. Our operations team also benchmarked scheduling models from the U.S., including looking at the “printrunner van nuys” turnaround approach, even though our production remained in Europe. One caveat: internal teams still love office mock-ups. Those Word templates are fine for layout thinking, but they don’t represent press color. We remind folks that those quick “how to make label printing in word” hacks are for drafts, not for color approval.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Marta (Nordloom): Six months after ramp-up, our waste on short-run label work fell into the 5–7% range, down from the 8–12% we’d seen. Changeover time moved from 40–60 minutes to roughly 12–18 minutes on repeat SKUs. ΔE sits around 1.5–2 on our standard color set, with tougher natural fiber substrates closer to 2–2.5. First Pass Yield landed in the 92–95% band, up from 82–85%. On energy, kWh per thousand labels dropped by roughly 10–14%, though it varies with substrate and finishing. We transitioned hangtag paper to FSC across core ranges and kept Seasonal runs flexible under Short-Run scheduling.
Interviewer: Any trade-offs or gaps you’d flag for peers?
Marta (Nordloom): Absolutely. Digital on uncoated, tactile stocks looks beautiful but can mark under rough handling, so we still specify light Varnishing on certain SKUs. Thermal Transfer remains the right call for some care labels, yet very fine serif fonts on recycled tapes are still at risk; we widened stroke weights by 0.1–0.2 pt to safeguard legibility. Also, adhesives for cold-chain apparel logistics didn’t tick every sustainability box we wanted, so those are still under review. Nothing is flawless, but the direction of travel is right for our European targets—and the workflow now fits the pace of our collections. And yes, we still use printrunner for occasional micro-batch validations when marketing wants to test a new label idea fast.
