中文Somewhere in St. Gallen, Switzerland, a label converter is standing in front of a production line, watching a roll of self-adhesive material run through a Gallus press with a digital embellishment unit humming beside it. The converter is not buying the equipment, at least not yet. They are testing a hypothesis: that the material, the press, the finishing and the workflow can deliver the tactile, premium results their customer has demanded, and that the whole combination will survive contact with a real production environment. That is the experience the Gallus Experience Center was built to provide, and it has just become more complete with the arrival of Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives as the latest industry partner to join the facility.
Gallus Group has welcomed Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives into the collaborative ecosystem behind its vision for smart, connected printing. As a system integrator, HEIDELBERG and Gallus bring together partners across the value chain, enabling customers to validate complete end-to-end production solutions offering greater productivity, transparency and sustainability benefits. The partnership sees Fedrigoni’s range of self-adhesive materials take up residence at the Experience Center, where converters, brand owners and industry partners can evaluate substrate performance alongside Gallus printing technologies in real production environments. Instead of relying on data sheets and sample swatches, visitors can run the actual substrate through the actual machine and judge the result with their own eyes and fingers.
The choice of Fedrigoni as a partner is significant. As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of self-adhesive materials, Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives brings an extensive portfolio of papers and films developed for premium labeling applications, with particular expertise in wine and spirits, luxury packaging, pharma, home and personal care. Those are exactly the sectors where labels are asked to do the most: carry a brand’s entire sensory identity, survive harsh environments like cold bottle chains and pharmacy shelves, and still deliver flawless print and finishing. A converter working in wine and spirits needs a material that takes deep colors, holds delicate foiling and feels substantial in the hand; the partnership gives them a place to prove that combination works before committing to production.
The collaboration is not abstract; it has a defined starting point. Building on the commercial launch of Gallus MatteJet and its growing adoption in premium label applications, the partnership will accelerate the development and validation of new solutions, with an initial focus on the wine and spirits market. MatteJet, Gallus’s digital embellishment technology, applies a distinctive matte texture that has become a signature of premium label design, and its combination with Fedrigoni’s material portfolio is aimed squarely at the sector’s exacting demands for tactile finishes, substrate performance and premium shelf appeal. By bringing together Gallus’s expertise in premium digital embellishment and Fedrigoni’s deep knowledge of label materials, the partnership will help converters meet those demands with confidence.
Dario Urbinati, CEO of Gallus Group, framed the announcement in terms of industry collaboration. “As an industry, we achieve more when we foster innovation through collaboration, bringing together ideas, knowledge and expertise. That principle has always been at the heart of the Gallus Experience Center, and why we continue to build our valued partner network. More than this, however, converters today need confidence that the technologies they invest in will perform together in a real production environment. By welcoming Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives to the Gallus Experience Center, we can provide customers the opportunity to test, validate and refine complete solutions before taking them into production, providing exactly that assurance. We are excited to see this partnership come to fruition as another meaningful step forward in bringing our vision for smart, connected printing to life.”
The emphasis on real production environments is the key to understanding the Experience Center’s value. Printing equipment vendors have always held demonstrations, but a demo on a show floor is a world away from a production validation: there are no salespeople hovering, no choreographed runs, no carefully selected substrates. The Experience Center is designed to be the opposite, a place where customers can bring their own jobs, run their own materials and put the system under the kind of stress it will face in daily use. With partners like Fedrigoni supplying the materials, those validations become more realistic, and the results more trustworthy.
For the wider label industry, the partnership illustrates a broader shift in how technology is sold and adopted. The era of buying machinery on spec is ending; converters increasingly want proof that a system works end-to-end before they sign. Ecosystem partnerships like this one, where press makers, material suppliers and finishing experts share a facility and a common goal, reduce the risk of adoption and accelerate the move to new technologies. As premium digital embellishment continues to spread through wine, spirits and luxury packaging, the combination of Gallus’s presses and Fedrigoni’s materials is well positioned to define the standard, and the Experience Center is where that standard will be tested, refined and proven.
Source: Specialist Printing Worldwide, August 19, 2026 — Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives joins Gallus Experience Center to advance premium digital label applications
